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diff --git a/18734.txt b/18734.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5145d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/18734.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6461 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. +(of X.), by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) + +Author: Various + +Editor: Marshall P. Wilder + +Release Date: July 1, 2006 [EBook #18734] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIT AND HUMOR III. *** + + + + +Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + + +Library Edition + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +In Ten Volumes + +VOL. III + + + + +[Illustration: SAMUEL L. CLEMENS (MARK TWAIN)] + + + + +THE WIT AND HUMOR OF AMERICA + +EDITED BY MARSHALL P. WILDER + +_Volume III_ + + +Funk & Wagnalls Company +New York and London + +Copyright MDCCCCVII, BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY +Copyright MDCCCCXI, THE THWING COMPANY + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + + Arkansas Planter, An Opie Read 556 + Auto Rubaiyat, The Reginald Wright Kauffman 546 + Ballade of the "How To" Books, A John James Davies 416 + Bohemians of Boston, The Gelett Burgess 519 + Courtin', The James Russell Lowell 524 + Crimson Cord, The Ellis Parker Butler 470 + Diamond Wedding, The Edmund Clarence Stedman 549 + Dislikes Oliver Wendell Holmes 536 + Dos't o' Blues, A James Whitcomb Riley 486 + Dying Gag, The James L. Ford 569 + Elizabeth Eliza Writes a Paper Lucretia P. Hale 454 + Garden Ethics Charles Dudley Warner 425 + Genial Idiot Suggests a Comic Opera, The John Kendrick Bangs 504 + Hans Breitmann's Party Charles Godfrey Leland 446 + Hired Hand and "Ha'nts," The E.O. Laughlin 419 + In Elizabeth's Day Wallace Rice 572 + In Philistia Bliss Carman 567 + Letter from Home, A Wallace Irwin 522 + Little Mock-Man, The James Whitcomb Riley 540 + Little Orphant Annie James Whitcomb Riley 444 + Mammy's Lullaby Strickland W. Gillilan 542 + Maxioms Carolyn Wells 424 + Morris and the Honorable Tim Myra Kelly 488 + Mr. Stiver's Horse James Montgomery Bailey 464 + My First Visit to Portland Major Jack Downing 409 + My Sweetheart Samuel Minturn Peck 544 + New Version, The W.J. Lampton 574 + Our New Neighbors at Ponkapog Thomas Bailey Aldrich 403 + Plaint of Jonah, The Robert J. Burdette 485 + Retort, The George P. Morris 584 + Rhyme of the Chivalrous Shark, The Wallace Irwin 483 + Rollo Learning to Read Robert J. Burdette 448 + Selecting the Faculty Bayard Rust Hall 437 + Southern Sketches Bill Arp 575 + Tower of London, The Artemus Ward 528 + Traveled Donkey, A Bert Leston Taylor 428 + Tree-Toad, The James Whitcomb Riley 418 + Two Automobilists, The Carolyn Wells 573 + Two Business Men, The Carolyn Wells 583 + Two Housewives, The Carolyn Wells 566 + Two Ladies, The Carolyn Wells 548 + Two Young Men, The Carolyn Wells 565 + Uncle Simon and Uncle Jim Artemus Ward 539 + Wamsley's Automatic Pastor Frank Crane 511 + Wild Animals I Have Met Carolyn Wells 414 + +COMPLETE INDEX AT THE END OF VOLUME X. + + + + +OUR NEW NEIGHBORS AT PONKAPOG + +BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH + + +When I saw the little house building, an eighth of a mile beyond my own, +on the Old Bay Road, I wondered who were to be the tenants. The modest +structure was set well back from the road, among the trees, as if the +inmates were to care nothing whatever for a view of the stylish +equipages which sweep by during the summer season. For my part, I like +to see the passing, in town or country; but each has his own +unaccountable taste. The proprietor, who seemed to be also the architect +of the new house, superintended the various details of the work with an +assiduity that gave me a high opinion of his intelligence and executive +ability, and I congratulated myself on the prospect of having some very +agreeable neighbors. + +It was quite early in the spring, if I remember, when they moved into +the cottage--a newly married couple, evidently: the wife very young, +pretty, and with the air of a lady; the husband somewhat older, but +still in the first flush of manhood. It was understood in the village +that they came from Baltimore; but no one knew them personally, and they +brought no letters of introduction. (For obvious reasons, I refrain from +mentioning names.) It was clear that, for the present at least, their +own company was entirely sufficient for them. They made no advance +toward the acquaintance of any of the families in the neighborhood, and +consequently were left to themselves. That, apparently, was what they +desired, and why they came to Ponkapog. For after its black bass and +wild duck and teal, solitude is the chief staple of Ponkapog. Perhaps +its perfect rural loveliness should be included. Lying high up under the +wing of the Blue Hills, and in the odorous breath of pines and cedars, +it chances to be the most enchanting bit of unlaced disheveled country +within fifty miles of Boston, which, moreover, can be reached in half an +hour's ride by railway. But the nearest railway station (Heaven be +praised!) is two miles distant, and the seclusion is without a flaw. +Ponkapog has one mail a day; two mails a day would render the place +uninhabitable. + +The village--it looks like a compact village at a distance, but unravels +and disappears the moment you drive into it--has quite a large floating +population. I do not allude to the perch and pickerel in Ponkapog Pond. +Along the Old Bay Road, a highway even in the Colonial days, there are a +number of attractive villas and cottages straggling off toward Milton, +which are occupied for the summer by people from the city. These birds +of passage are a distinct class from the permanent inhabitants, and the +two seldom closely assimilate unless there has been some previous +connection. It seemed to me that our new neighbors were to come under +the head of permanent inhabitants; they had built their own house, and +had the air of intending to live in it all the year round. + +"Are you not going to call on them?" I asked my wife one morning. + +"When they call on _us_," she replied lightly. + +"But it is our place to call first, they being strangers." + +This was said as seriously as the circumstance demanded; but my wife +turned it off with a laugh, and I said no more, always trusting to her +intuitions in these matters. + +She was right. She would not have been received, and a cool "Not at +home" would have been a bitter social pill to us if we had gone out of +our way to be courteous. + +I saw a great deal of our neighbors, nevertheless. Their cottage lay +between us and the post-office--where _he_ was never to be met with by +any chance--and I caught frequent glimpses of the two working in the +garden. Floriculture did not appear so much an object as exercise. +Possibly it was neither; maybe they were engaged in digging for +specimens of those arrowheads and flint hatchets, which are continually +coming to the surface hereabouts. There is scarcely an acre in which the +plowshare has not turned up some primitive stone weapon or domestic +utensil, disdainfully left to us by the red men who once held this +domain--an ancient tribe called the Punkypoags, a forlorn descendant of +which, one Polly Crowd, figures in the annual Blue Book, down to the +close of the Southern war, as a state pensioner. At that period she +appears to have struck a trail to the Happy Hunting Grounds. I quote +from the local historiographer. + +Whether they were developing a kitchen garden, or emulating Professor +Schliemann, at Mycenae, the newcomers were evidently persons of refined +musical taste: the lady had a contralto voice of remarkable sweetness, +although of no great compass, and I used often to linger of a morning by +the high gate and listen to her executing an arietta, conjecturally at +some window upstairs, for the house was not visible from the turnpike. +The husband, somewhere about the ground, would occasionally respond with +two or three bars. It was all quite an ideal, Arcadian business. They +seemed very happy together, these two persons, who asked no odds +whatever of the community in which they had settled themselves. + +There was a queerness, a sort of mystery, about this couple which I +admit piqued my curiosity, though as a rule I have no morbid interest in +the affairs of my neighbors. They behaved like a pair of lovers who had +run off and got married clandestinely. I willingly acquitted them, +however, of having done anything unlawful; for, to change a word in the +lines of the poet, + + "It is a joy to _think_ the best + We may of human kind." + +Admitting the hypothesis of elopement, there was no mystery in their +neither sending nor receiving letters. But where did they get their +groceries? I do not mean the money to pay for them--that is an enigma +apart--but the groceries themselves. No express wagon, no butcher's +cart, no vehicle of any description, was ever observed to stop at their +domicile. Yet they did not order family stores at the sole establishment +in the village--an inexhaustible little bottle of a shop which, I +advertise it gratis, can turn out anything in the way of groceries, from +a hand-saw to a pocket-handkerchief. I confess that I allowed this +unimportant detail of their _menage_ to occupy more of my speculation +than was creditable to me. + +In several respects our neighbors reminded me of those inexplicable +persons we sometimes come across in great cities, though seldom or never +in suburban places, where the field may be supposed too restricted for +their operations--persons who have no perceptible means of subsistence, +and manage to live royally on nothing a year. They hold no government +bonds, they possess no real estate (our neighbors did own their house), +they toil not, neither do they spin; yet they reap all the numerous soft +advantages that usually result from honest toil and skilful spinning. +How do they do it? But this is a digression, and I am quite of the +opinion of the old lady in "David Copperfield," who says, "Let us have +no meandering!" + +Though my wife had declined to risk a ceremonious call on our neighbors +as a family, I saw no reason why I should not speak to the husband as an +individual, when I happened to encounter him by the wayside. I made +several approaches to do so, when it occurred to my penetration that my +neighbor had the air of trying to avoid me. I resolved to put the +suspicion to the test, and one forenoon, when he was sauntering along on +the opposite side of the road, in the vicinity of Fisher's sawmill, I +deliberately crossed over to address him. The brusque manner in which he +hurried away was not to be misunderstood. Of course I was not going to +force myself upon him. + +It was at this time that I began to formulate uncharitable suppositions +touching our neighbors, and would have been as well pleased if some of +my choicest fruit-trees had not overhung their wall. I determined to +keep my eyes open later in the season, when the fruit should be ripe to +pluck. In some folks, a sense of the delicate shades of difference +between _meum_ and _tuum_ does not seem to be very strongly developed in +the Moon of Cherries, to use the old Indian phrase. + +I was sufficiently magnanimous not to impart any of these sinister +impressions to the families with whom we were on visiting terms; for I +despise a gossip. I would say nothing against the persons up the road +until I had something definite to say. My interest in them was--well, +not exactly extinguished, but burning low. I met the gentleman at +intervals, and passed him without recognition; at rarer intervals I saw +the lady. + +After a while I not only missed my occasional glimpses of her pretty, +slim figure, always draped in some soft black stuff with a bit of +scarlet at the throat, but I inferred that she did not go about the +house singing in her light-hearted manner, as formerly. What had +happened? Had the honeymoon suffered eclipse already? Was she ill? I +fancied she was ill, and that I detected a certain anxiety in the +husband, who spent the mornings digging solitarily in the garden, and +seemed to have relinquished those long jaunts to the brow of Blue Hill, +where there is a superb view of all Norfolk County combined with sundry +venerable rattlesnakes with twelve rattles. + +As the days went by it became certain that the lady was confined to the +house, perhaps seriously ill, possibly a confirmed invalid. Whether she +was attended by a physician from Canton or from Milton, I was unable to +say; but neither the gig with the large white allopathic horse, nor the +gig with the homoeopathic sorrel mare, was ever seen hitched at the +gate during the day. If a physician had charge of the case, he visited +his patient only at night. All this moved my sympathy, and I reproached +myself with having had hard thoughts of our neighbors. Trouble had come +to them early. I would have liked to offer them such small, friendly +services as lay in my power; but the memory of the repulse I had +sustained still rankled in me. So I hesitated. + +One morning my two boys burst into the library with their eyes +sparkling. + +"You know the old elm down the road?" cried one. + +"Yes." + +"The elm with the hang-bird's nest?" shrieked the other. + +"Yes, yes!" + +"Well, we both just climbed up, and there's three young ones in it!" + +Then I smiled to think that our new neighbors had got such a promising +little family. + + + + +MY FIRST VISIT TO PORTLAND + +BY MAJOR JACK DOWNING + + +In the fall of the year 1829, I took it into my head I'd go to Portland. +I had heard a good deal about Portland, what a fine place it was, and +how the folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall there was a +couple of new papers come up to our place from there, called the +"Portland Courier" and "Family Reader," and they told a good many queer +kind of things about Portland, and one thing and another; and all at +once it popped into my head, and I up and told father, and says,-- + +"I am going to Portland, whether or no; and I'll see what this world is +made of yet." + +Father stared a little at first, and said he was afraid I would get +lost; but when he see I was bent upon it, he give it up, and he stepped +to his chist, and opened the till, and took out a dollar, and he gave it +to me; and says he,-- + +"Jack, this is all I can do for you; but go and lead an honest life, and +I believe I shall hear good of you yet." + +He turned and walked across the room, but I could see the tears start +into his eyes. And mother sat down and had a hearty crying-spell. + +This made me feel rather bad for a minit or two, and I almost had a mind +to give it up; and then again father's dream came into my mind, and I +mustered up courage, and declared I'd go. So I tackled up the old horse, +and packed in a load of axe-handles, and a few notions; and mother +fried me some doughnuts, and put 'em into a box, along with some cheese, +and sausages, and ropped me up another shirt, for I told her I didn't +know how long I should be gone. And after I got rigged out, I went round +and bid all the neighbors good-by, and jumped in, and drove off for +Portland. + +Aunt Sally had been married two or three years before, and moved to +Portland; and I inquired round till I found out where she lived, and +went there, and put the old horse up, and eat some supper, and went to +bed. + +And the next morning I got up, and straightened right off to see the +editor of the "Portland Courier," for I knew by what I had seen in his +paper, that he was just the man to tell me which way to steer. And when +I come to see him, I knew I was right; for soon as I told him my name, +and what I wanted, he took me by the hand as kind as if he had been a +brother, and says he,-- + +"Mister," says he, "I'll do anything I can to assist you. You have come +to a good town; Portland is a healthy, thriving place, and any man with +a proper degree of enterprise may do well here. But," says he, +"stranger," and he looked mighty kind of knowing, says he, "if you want +to make out to your mind, you must do as the steamboats do." + +"Well," says I, "how do they do?" for I didn't know what a steamboat +was, any more than the man in the moon. + +"Why," says he, "they go ahead. And you must drive about among the folks +here just as though you were at home, on the farm among the cattle. +Don't be afraid of any of them, but figure away, and I dare say you'll +get into good business in a very little while. But," says he, "there's +one thing you must be careful of; and that is, not to get into the hands +of those are folks that trades up round Huckler's Row, for ther's some +sharpers up there, if they get hold of you, would twist your eye-teeth +out in five minits." + +Well, arter he had giv me all the good advice he could, I went back to +Aunt Sally's ag'in, and got some breakfast; and then I walked all over +the town, to see what chance I could find to sell my axe-handles and +things and to get into business. + +After I had walked about three or four hours, I come along towards the +upper end of the town, where I found there were stores and shops of all +sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I,-- + +"What place is this?" + +"Why, this," says he, "is Huckler's Row." + +"What!" says I, "are these the stores where the traders in Huckler's Row +keep?" + +And says he, "Yes." + +"Well, then," says I to myself, "I have a pesky good mind to go in and +have a try with one of these chaps, and see if they can twist my +eye-teeth out. If they can get the best end of a bargain out of me, they +can do what there ain't a man in our place can do; and I should just +like to know what sort of stuff these 'ere Portland chaps are made of." +So I goes into the best-looking store among 'em. And I see some biscuit +on the shelf, and says I,-- + +"Mister, how much do you ax apiece for them 'ere biscuits?" + +"A cent apiece," says he. + +"Well," says I, "I shan't give you that, but, if you've a mind to, I'll +give you two cents for three of them, for I begin to feel a little as +though I would like to take a bite." + +"Well," says he, "I wouldn't sell 'em to anybody else so, but, seeing +it's you, I don't care if you take 'em." + +I knew he lied, for he never seen me before in his life. Well, he handed +down the biscuits, and I took 'em and walked round the store awhile, to +see what else he had to sell. At last says I,-- + +"Mister, have you got any good cider?" + +Says he, "Yes, as good as ever ye see." + +"Well," says I, "what do you ax a glass for it?" + +"Two cents," says he. + +"Well," says I, "seems to me I feel more dry than I do hungry now. Ain't +you a mind to take these 'ere biscuits again, and give me a glass of +cider?" + +And says he,-- + +"I don't care if I do." + +So he took and laid 'em on the shelf again, and poured out a glass of +cider. I took the cider and drinkt it down, and, to tell the truth, it +was capital good cider. Then says I,-- + +"I guess it's time for me to be a-going," and I stept along towards the +door; but says he,-- + +"Stop, mister: I believe you haven't paid me for the cider?" + +"Not paid you for the cider!" says I. "What do you mean by that? Didn't +the biscuits that I give you just come to the cider?" + +"Oh, ah, right!" says he. + +So I started to go again, and says he,-- + +"But stop there, mister: you didn't pay me for the biscuits." + +"What!" says I, "do you mean to impose upon me? do you think I am going +to pay you for the biscuits and let you keep them, too? Ain't they there +now on your shelf? What more do you want? I guess, sir, you don't +whittle me in that way." + +So I turned about and marched off, and left the feller staring and +scratching his head, as though he was struck with a dunderment. + +Howsomever, I didn't want to cheat him, only jest to show 'em it wa'n't +so easy a matter to pull my eye-teeth out; so I called in next day and +paid him two cents. + + + + +WILD ANIMALS I HAVE MET + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +THE LION + + I've met this beast in drawing-rooms, + 'Mong ladies gay with silks and plumes. + He looks quite bored, and silly, too, + When he's held up to public view. + I think I like him better when + Alone I brave him in his den. + + +THE BEAR + + I never seek the surly Bear, + But if I meet him in his lair + I say, "Good day, sir; sir, good day," + And then make haste to get away. + It is no pleasure, I declare, + To meet the cross, ill-natured Bear. + + +THE GOOSE + + I know it would be of no use + To say I'd never met a Goose. + There are so many all around, + With idle look and clacking sound. + And sometimes it has come to pass + I've seen one in my looking-glass. + + +THE DUCK + + This merry one, with laughing eyes, + Not too sedate nor overwise, + Is best of comrades; frank and free, + A clever hand at making tea; + A fearless nature, full of pluck, + I like her well--she is a Duck. + + +THE CAT + + The Cat's a nasty little beast; + She's seen at many a fete and feast. + She's spiteful, sly and double-faced, + Exceeding prim, exceeding chaste. + And while a soft, sleek smile she wears, + Her neighbor's reputation tears. + + +THE PUPPY + + Of all the animals I've met + The Puppy is the worst one yet. + Clumsy and crude, he hasn't brains + Enough to come in when it rains. + But with insufferable conceit + He thinks that he is just too sweet. + + +THE KID + + Kids are the funniest things I know; + Nothing they do but eat and grow. + They're frolicsome, and it is said + They eat tin cans and are not dead. + I'm not astonished at that feat, + For all things else I've seen them eat. + + + + +A BALLADE OF THE "HOW TO" BOOKS + +BY JOHN JAMES DAVIES + + + That time when Learning's path was steep, + And rocks and fissures marred the way, + The few who dared were forced to creep, + Their souls oft quaking with dismay; + The goal achieved, their hairs were gray, + Their bodies bent like shepherds' crooks; + How blest are we who run to-day + The easy road of "How To" books! + + The presses groan, and volumes heap, + Our dullness we no more betray; + To know the stars, or shear a sheep-- + To live on air, or polo play; + The trick is ours, or we may stray + Beneath the seas, with science cooks, + And sprint by some reflected ray + The easy road of "How To" books! + + Who craves the boon of dreamless sleep? + Who bricks would make, _sans_ straw or clay? + "Call spirits from the vasty deep," + Or weave a lofty, living lay? + Let him be heartened, jocund, gay, + Nor hopeless writhe on tenter-hooks,-- + They meet no barriers who essay + The easy road of "How To" books! + + +ENVOY + + The critics still _will_ slash and slay + Poor hapless scribes, in sanctum nooks; + Lo! here's a refuge for their prey-- + The easy road of "How To" books! + + + + +THE TREE-TOAD + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + "'Scurious-like," said the tree-toad, + "I've twittered fer rain all day; + And I got up soon, + And I hollered till noon-- + But the sun, hit blazed away, + Till I jest clumb down in a crawfish-hole, + Weary at heart, and sick at soul! + + "Dozed away fer an hour, + And I tackled the thing agin; + And I sung, and sung, + Till I knowed my lung + Was jest about give in; + And then, thinks I, ef hit don't rain now, + There're nothin' in singin', anyhow! + + "Once in awhile some farmer + Would come a-drivin' past; + And he'd hear my cry, + And stop and sigh-- + Till I jest laid back, at last, + And I hollered rain till I thought my th'oat + Would bust right open at ever' note! + + "But I _fetched_ her! O _I fetched_ her!-- + 'Cause a little while ago, + As I kindo' set, + With one eye shet, + And a-singin' soft and low, + A voice drapped down on my fevered brain, + Sayin',--'Ef you'll jest hush I'll rain!'" + + + + +THE HIRED HAND AND "HA'NTS" + +BY E.O. LAUGHLIN + + +The Hired Hand was Johnnie's oracle. His auguries were infallible; from +his decisions there was no appeal. The wisdom of experienced age was +his, and he always stood willing to impart it to the youngest. No +question was too trivial for him to consider, and none too abstruse for +him to answer. He did not tell Johnnie to "never mind" or wait until he +grew older, but was ever willing to pause in his work to explain things. +And his oracular qualifications were genuine. He had traveled--had even +been as far as the State Fair; he had read--from _Robinson Crusoe_ to +_Dick the Dead Shot_, and, more than all, he had meditated deeply. + +The Hired Hand's name was Eph. Perhaps he had another name, too, but if +so it had become obsolete. Far and wide he was known simply as Eph. + +Eph was generally termed "a cur'ous feller," and this characterization +applied equally well to his peculiar appearance and his inquiring +disposition. In his confirmation nature had evidently sacrificed her +love of beauty to a temporary passion for elongation. Length seemed to +have been the central thought, the theme, as it were, upon which he had +been composed. This effect was heightened by generously broad hands and +feet and a contrastingly abbreviated chin. The latter feature caused his +countenance to wear in repose a decidedly vacant look, but it was seldom +caught reposing, usually having to bear a smirk of some sort. + +Eph's position in the Winkle household was as peculiar as his +personality. Nominally he was a hired servant, but, in fact, from his +own point of view at least, he was Mr. Winkle's private secretary and +confidential adviser. He had been on the place "ever sence old Fan was a +yearlin'," which was a long while, indeed; and had come to regard +himself as indispensable. The Winkles treated him as one of the family, +and he reciprocated in truly familiar ways. He sat at the table with +them, helped entertain their guests, and often accompanied them to +church. In regulating matters on the farm Mr. Winkle proposed, but Eph +invariably disposed, in a diplomatic way, of course; and, although his +judgment might be based on false logic, the result was generally +successful and satisfactory. + +With all his good qualities and her attachment to him, however, Mrs. +Winkle was not sure that Eph's moral status was quite sound, and she was +inclined to discourage Johnnie's association with him. As a matter of +fact she had overheard Johnnie utter several bad words, of which Eph was +certainly the prime source. But a mother's solicitude was of little +avail when compared with Eph's Delphian wisdom. Johnnie would steal away +to join Eph in the field at every chance, and the information he +acquired at these secret seances, was varied and valuable. + +It was Eph who taught him how to tell the time of day by the sun; how to +insert a "dutchman" in the place of a lost suspender button; how to make +bird-traps; and how to "skin the cat." Eph initiated him into the +mysteries of magic and witchcraft, and showed him how to locate a +subterranean vein of water by means of a twig of witch-hazel. Eph also +confided to Johnnie that he himself could stanch the flow of blood or +stop a toothache instantly by force of a certain charm, but he could +not tell how to do this because the secret could be imparted only from +man to woman, or vice versa. Even the shadowy domain of spirits had not +been exempt from Eph's investigations, and he related many a terrifying +experience with "ha'nts." + +Johnnie was first introduced to the ghost world one summer night, when +he and Eph had gone fishing together. + +"If ye want to ketch the big uns, always go at night in the dark o' the +moon," said Eph, and his piscatorial knowledge was absolute. + +They had fished in silence for some time, and Johnnie was nodding, when +Eph suddenly whispered: + +"Let's go home, sonny, I think I see a ha'nt down yander." + +Johnnie had no idea what a "ha'nt" might be, but Eph's constrained +manner betokened something dreadful. + +It was not until they had come within sight of home that Johnnie +ventured to inquire: + +"Say, Eph, what is a ha'nt?" + +"Huh! What is ha'nts? Why, sonny, you mean to tell me you don't know +what ha'nts is?" + +"Not exactly; sompin' like wildcats, ain't they?" + +"Well, I'll be confounded! Wildcats! Not by a long shot;" and Eph broke +into the soft chuckle which always preceded his explanations. They +reached the orchard fence, and, seating himself squarely on the topmost +rail, Eph began impressively: + +"Ha'nts is the remains of dead folks--more 'specially them that's been +assinated, er, that is, kilt--understan'? They're kind o' like sperrits, +ye know. After so long a time they take to comin' back to yarth an' +ha'ntin' the precise spot where they wuz murdered. They always come +after dark, an' the diffrunt shapes they take on is supprisin'. I have +seed ha'nts that looked like sheep, an' ha'nts that looked like human +persons; but lots of 'em ye cain't see a-tall, bein' invisible, as the +sayin' is. Now, fer all we know, they may be a ha'nt settin' right here +betwixt us, this minute!" + +With this solemn declaration Johnnie shivered and began edging closer to +Eph, until restrained and appalled by the thought that he might actually +sit on the unseen spirit by such movement. + +"But do they hurt people, Eph?" he asked anxiously. + +Eph gave vent to another chuckle. + +"Not if ye understan' the'r ways," he observed sagely. "If ye let 'em +alone an' don't go foolin' aroun' the'r ha'ntin'-groun' they'll never +harm ye. But don't ye never trifle with no ha'nt, sonny. I knowed a +feller't thought 'twuz smart to hector 'em an' said he wuzn't feared. +Onct he throwed a rock at one--" + +Here Eph paused. + +"What h-happened?" gasped Johnnie. + +"In one year from that time," replied Eph gruesomely, "that there +feller's cow wuz hit by lightnin'; in three year his hoss kicked him an' +busted a rib; an' in seven year he wuz a corpse!" + +The power of this horrible example was too much for Johnnie. + +"Don't you reckon it's bedtime?" he suggested tremblingly. + +Thenceforth for many months Johnnie led a haunted life. Ghosts glowered +at him from cellar and garret. Specters slunk at his heels, phantoms +flitted through the barn. Twilight teemed with horrors, and midnight, +when he awoke at that hour, made of his bedroom a veritable Brocken. + +It was vain for his parents to expostulate with him. Was one not bound +to believe one's own eyes? And how about the testimony of the Hired +Hand? + +The story in his reader--told in verse and graphically illustrated--of +the boy named Walter, who, being alone on a lonesome highway one dark +night, beheld a sight that made his blood run cold, acquired an abnormal +interest for Johnnie. Walter, with courage resembling madness, marched +straight up to the alleged ghost and laughed gleefully to find, "It was +a friendly guide-post, his wand'ring steps to guide." + +This was all very well, as it turned out, but what if it had been a +sure-enough ghost, reflected Johnnie. What if it had reached down with +its long, snaky arms and snatched Walter up--and run off with him in the +dark--and no telling what? Or it might have swooped straight up in the +air with him, for ghosts could do that. Johnnie resolved he would not +take any chances with friendly guide-posts which might turn out to be +hostile spirits. + +Then there was the similar tale of the lame goose, and the one +concerning the pillow in the swing--each intended, no doubt, to allay +foolish fears on the part of children, but exercising an opposite and +harrowing influence upon Johnnie. + + + + +MAXIOMS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + + Reward is its own virtue. + The wages of sin is alimony. + Money makes the mayor go. + A penny saved spoils the broth. + Of two evils, choose the prettier. + There's no fool like an old maid. + Make love while the moon shines. + Where there's a won't there's a way. + Nonsense makes the heart grow fonder. + A word to the wise is a dangerous thing. + A living gale is better than a dead calm. + A fool and his money corrupt good manners. + A word in the hand is worth two in the ear. + A man is known by the love-letters he keeps. + A guilty conscience is the mother of invention. + Whosoever thy hands find to do, do with thy might. + It's a wise child who knows less than his own father. + Never put off till to-morrow what you can wear to-night. + He who loves and runs away, may live to love another day. + + + + +GARDEN ETHICS + +BY CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER + + +I believe that I have found, if not original sin, at least vegetable +total depravity in my garden; and it was there before I went into it. It +is the bunch-, or joint-, or snake-grass,--whatever it is called. As I +do not know the names of all the weeds and plants, I have to do as Adam +did in his garden,--name things as I find them. This grass has a +slender, beautiful stalk: and when you cut it down, or pull up a long +root of it, you fancy it is got rid of; but in a day or two it will come +up in the same spot in half a dozen vigorous blades. Cutting down and +pulling up is what it thrives on. Extermination rather helps it. If you +follow a slender white root, it will be found to run under the ground +until it meets another slender white root; and you will soon unearth a +network of them, with a knot somewhere, sending out dozens of +sharp-pointed, healthy shoots, every joint prepared to be an independent +life and plant. The only way to deal with it is to take one part hoe and +two parts fingers, and carefully dig it out, not leaving a joint +anywhere. It will take a little time, say all summer, to dig out +thoroughly a small patch; but if you once dig it out, and keep it out, +you will have no further trouble. + +I have said it was total depravity. Here it is. If you attempt to pull +up and root out sin in you, which shows on the surface,--if it does not +show, you do not care for it,--you may have noticed how it runs into an +interior network of sins, and an ever-sprouting branch of these roots +somewhere; and that you can not pull out one without making a general +internal disturbance, and rooting up your whole being. I suppose it is +less trouble to quietly cut them off at the top--say once a week, on +Sunday, when you put on your religious clothes and face,--so that no one +will see them, and not try to eradicate the network within. + +_Remark._--This moral vegetable figure is at the service of any +clergyman who will have the manliness to come forward and help me at a +day's hoeing on my potatoes. None but the orthodox need apply. + +I, however, believe in the intellectual, if not the moral, qualities of +vegetables, and especially weeds. There was a worthless vine that (or +who) started up about midway between a grape-trellis and a row of +bean-poles, some three feet from each, but a little nearer the trellis. +When it came out of the ground, it looked around to see what it should +do. The trellis was already occupied. The bean-pole was empty. There was +evidently a little the best chance of light, air, and sole +proprietorship on the pole. And the vine started for the pole, and began +to climb it with determination. Here was as distinct an act of choice, +of reason, as a boy exercises when he goes into a forest, and, looking +about, decides which tree he will climb. And, besides, how did the vine +know enough to travel in exactly the right direction, three feet, to +find what it wanted? This is intellect. The weeds, on the other hand, +have hateful moral qualities. To cut down a weed is, therefore, to do a +moral action. I feel as if I were destroying a sin. My hoe becomes an +instrument of retributive justice. I am an apostle of nature. This view +of the matter lends a dignity to the art of hoeing which nothing else +does, and lifts it into the region of ethics. Hoeing becomes, not a +pastime, but a duty. And you get to regard it so, as the days and the +weeds lengthen. + +_Observation._--Nevertheless, what a man needs in gardening is a +cast-iron back, with a hinge in it. The hoe is an ingenious instrument, +calculated to call out a great deal of strength at a great disadvantage. + +The striped bug has come, the saddest of the year. He is a moral +double-ender, iron-clad at that. He is unpleasant in two ways. He +burrows in the ground so that you can not find him, and he flies away so +that you can not catch him. He is rather handsome, as bugs go, but +utterly dastardly, in that he gnaws the stem of the plant close to the +ground, and ruins it without any apparent advantage to himself. I find +him on the hills of cucumbers (perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and we +shall not want any), the squashes (small loss), and the melons (which +never ripen). The best way to deal with the striped bug is to sit down +by the hills, and patiently watch for him. If you are spry, you can +annoy him. This, however, takes time. It takes all day and part of the +night. For he flieth in the darkness, and wasteth at noonday. If you get +up before the dew is off the plants,--it goes off very early,--you can +sprinkle soot on the plant (soot is my panacea: if I can get the disease +of a plant reduced to the necessity of soot, I am all right); and soot +is unpleasant to the bug. But the best thing to do is set a toad to +catch the bugs. The toad at once establishes the most intimate relations +with the bug. It is a pleasure to see such unity among the lower +animals. The difficulty is to make the toad stay and watch the hill. If +you know your toad, it is all right. If you do not, you must build a +tight fence round the plants, which the toad can not jump over. This, +however, introduces a new element. I find that I have a zooelogical +garden. It is an unexpected result of my little enterprise, which never +aspired to the completeness of the Paris "Jardin des Plantes." + + + + +A TRAVELED DONKEY + +BY BERT LESTON TAYLOR + + +But Buddie got no farther. The sound of music came to her ears, and she +stopped to listen. The music was faint and sweet, with the sighful +quality of an AEolian harp. Now it seemed near, now far. + +"What can it be?" said Buddie. + +"Wait here and I'll find out," said Snowfeathers. He darted away and +returned before you could count fifty. + +"A traveling musician," he reported. "Come along. It's only a little +way." + +Back he flew, with Buddie scrambling after. A few yards brought her to a +little open place, and here was the queerest sight she had yet seen in +this queer wood. + +On a bank of reindeer moss, at the foot of a great white birch, a +mouse-colored donkey sat playing a lute. Over his head, hanging from a +bit of bark, was the sign: + + WHILE YOU WAIT + OLD SAWS RESET + +After the many strange things that Buddie had come upon in Queerwood, +nothing could surprise her very much. Besides, as she never before had +seen a donkey, or a lute, or the combination of donkey and lute, it did +not strike her as especially remarkable that the musician should be +holding his instrument upside down, and sweeping the strings with one of +his long ears, which he was able to wave without moving his head a jot. +And this it was that gave to the music its soft and furry-purry quality. + +The Donkey greeted Buddie with a careless nod, and remarked, as if +anticipating a comment he had heard many times: + +"Oh, yes; I play everything _by ear_." + +"Please keep on playing," said Buddie, taking a seat on another clump of +reindeer moss. + +"I intended to," said the Donkey; and the random chords changed to a +crooning melody which wonderfully pleased Buddie, whose opportunities to +hear music were sadly few. As for the White Blackbird, he tucked his +little head under his wing and went fast asleep. + +"Well, what do you think of it?" asked the Donkey, putting down the +lute. + +"Very nice, sir," answered Buddie, enthusiastically; though she added to +herself: The idea of saying sir to an animal! "Would you please tell me +your name?" she requested. + +The Donkey pawed open a saddle-bag, drew forth with his teeth a card, +and presented it to Buddie, who spelled out the following: + + PROFESSOR BRAY + TENORE BARITONALE + TEACHER OF SINGING ALL METHODS + CONCERTS AND RECITALS + +While Buddie was reading this the Donkey again picked up his instrument +and thrummed the strings. + +"Did you ever see a donkey play a lute?" said he. "That's an old saw," +he added. + +"I never saw a donkey before," said Buddie. + +"You haven't traveled much," said the other. "The world is full of +them." + +"This is the farthest I've ever been from home," confessed Buddie, +feeling very insignificant indeed. + +"And how far may that be?" + +Buddie couldn't tell exactly. + +"But it can't be a great way," she said. "I live in the log house by the +lake." + +"Pooh!" said the Donkey. "That's no distance at all." Buddie shrank +another inch or two. "I'm a great traveler myself. All donkeys travel +that can. If a donkey travels, you know, he _may_ come home a horse; and +to become a horse is, of course, the ambition of every donkey!" + +"Is it?" was all Buddie could think of to remark. What could she say +that would interest a globe-trotter? + +"Perhaps you have an old saw you'd like reset," suggested the Donkey, +still thrumming the lute-strings. + +Buddie thought a moment. + +"There's an old saw hanging up in our woodshed," she began, but got no +farther. + +"Hee-haw! hee-haw!" laughed the Donkey. "Thistles and cactus, but that's +rich!" And he hee-hawed until the tears ran down his nose. Poor Buddie, +who knew she was being laughed at but didn't know why, began to feel +very much like crying and wished she might run away. + +"Excuse these tears," the Donkey said at last, recovering his family +gravity. "Didn't you ever hear the saying, A burnt child dreads the +fire?" + +Buddie nodded, and plucked up her spirits. + +"Well, that's an old saw. And you must have heard that other very old +saw, No use crying over spilt milk." + +Another nod from Buddie. + +"Here's my setting of that," said the Donkey; and after a few +introductory chords, he sang: + + "'Oh, why do you cry, my pretty little maid, + With a Boo-hoo-hoo and a Heigho?' + 'I've spilled my milk, kind sir,' she said, + And the Cat said, 'Me-oh! my-oh!' + + 'No use to cry, my pretty little maid, + With a Boo-hoo-hoo and a Heigho.' + 'But what shall I do, kind sir?' she said, + And the Cat said, 'Me-oh! my-oh!' + + 'Why, dry your eyes, my pretty little maid, + With a Boo-hoo-hoo and a Heigho.' + 'Oh, thank you, thank you, sir,' she said, + And the Cat said, 'Me-oh! my-oh!'" + +"How do you like my voice?" asked the Donkey, in a tone that said very +plainly: "If you don't like it you're no judge of singing." + +Buddie did not at once reply. A professional critic would have said, and +enjoyed saying, that the voice was of the hit-or-miss variety; that it +was pitched too high (all donkeys make that mistake); that it was harsh, +rasping and unsympathetic, and that altogether the performance was "not +convincing." + +Now, Little One, although Buddie was not a professional critic, and +neither knew how to wound nor enjoyed wounding, even _she_ found the +Donkey's voice harsh; but she did not wish to hurt his feelings--for +donkeys _have_ feelings, in spite of a popular opinion to the contrary. +And, after all, it was pretty good singing for a donkey. Critics should +not, as they sometimes do, apply to donkeys the standards by which +nightingales are judged. So Buddie was able to say, truthfully and +kindly: + +"I think you do very well; very well, indeed." + +It was a small tribute, but the Donkey was so blinded by conceit that he +accepted it as the greatest compliment. + +"I _ought_ to sing well," he said. "I've studied methods enough. The +more methods you try, you know, the more of a donkey you are." + +"Oh, yes," murmured Buddie, not understanding in the least. + +"Yes," went on the Donkey; "I've taken the Donkesi Method, the Sobraylia +Method, the Thistlefixu Method--" + +"I'm afraid I don't quite know what you mean by 'methods,'" ventured +Buddie. + +The Donkey regarded her with a pitying smile. + +"A method," he explained, "is a way of singing 'Ah!' For example, in the +Thistlefixu Method, which I am at present using, I fill my mouth full of +thistles, stand on one leg, take in a breath three yards long, and sing +'Ah!' The only trouble with this method is that the thistles tickle your +throat and make you cough, and you have to spray the vocal cords twice a +day, which is considerable trouble, especially when traveling, as _I_ +always am." + +"I should think it _would_ be," said Buddie. "Won't you sing something +else?" + +"I'm a little hoarse," apologized the singer. + +"That's what you want to be, isn't it?" said Buddie, misunderstanding +him. + +"Hee-haw!" laughed the Donkey. "Is that a joke? I mean my _throat_ is +hoarse." + +"And the rest of you is donkey!" cried Buddie, who could see a point as +quickly as any one of her age. + +"There's something to that," said the other, thoughtfully. "Now, if the +_hoarseness_ should spread--" + +"And you became _horse_ all over--" + +"Why, then--" + +"Why, then--" + +"Think of another old saw," said the Donkey, picking up his lute. + +"No; I don't believe I can remember any more old saws," said Buddie, +after racking her small brain for a minute or two. + +"Pooh!" said the Donkey. "They're as common as, Pass the butter, or, +Some more tea, please. Ever hear, Fair words butter no parsnips?" + +Buddie shook her head. + +"The wolf does something every day that keeps him from church on +Sunday--?" + +Again Buddy shook her head. + +"It is hard to shave an egg--?" + +Still another shake. + +"A miss is as good as a mile? You can not drive a windmill with a pair +of bellows? Help the lame dog over the stile? A hand-saw is a good +thing, but not to shave with? Nothing venture, nothing have? Well, you +haven't heard much, for a fact," said the Donkey, contemptuously, as +Buddie shook her head after each proverb. "I'll try a few more; there's +no end to them. Ever hear, When the sky falls we shall all catch larks? +Too many cooks spoil the broth?" + +"I've heard _that_," said Buddie, eagerly. + +"It's a wonder," returned the Donkey. "Well, I have a very nice setting +of that." And he sang: + + "Some said, 'Stir it fast,' + Some said, 'Slow'; + Some said, 'Skim it off,' + Some said, 'No'; + Some said, 'Pepper,' + Some said, 'Salt';-- + All gave good advice, + All found fault. + + Poor little Tommy Trottett! + Couldn't eat it when he got it." + +"I like that," said Buddie. "Oh, and I've just thought of another old +ax--I mean saw, if it _is_ one--Don't count your chickens before they +are hatched. Do you sing that?" + +"One of my best," replied the Donkey. And again he sang: + + "'Thirteen eggs,' said Sammy Patch, + 'Are thirteen chickens when they hatch.' + The hen gave a cluck, but said no more; + For the hen had heard such things before. + + The eggs fall out from tilted pail + And leave behind a yellow trail; + But Sammy,--counting, as he goes, + Upon his fingers,--never knows. + + Oh, Sammy Patch, your 'rithmetic + Won't hatch a solitary chick." + +"I like that the best," said Buddie, who knew what it was to tip over a +pail of eggs, and felt as sorry for Sammy Patch as if he really existed. + +"It's one of my best," said the Donkey. "I don't call it my very best. +Personally I prefer, Look before you leap. You've heard that old saw, I +dare say." + +"No; but that doesn't matter. I shall like it just as well," replied +Buddie. + +"_That_ doesn't follow, but _this_ does," said the Donkey, and once more +he sang: + + "A foolish Frog, one summer day, + While splashing round in careless way, + Observed a man + With large tin can, + And manner most suspicious. + 'I think I know,' remarked the Frog, + 'A safer place than on this log; + For when a man + Comes with a can + His object is malicious.' + + Thus far the foolish Frog was wise; + But had he better used his eyes, + He would have seen, + Close by, a lean + Old Pike--his nose just showing. + Kersplash! The Pike made just one bite.... + The moral I need scarce recite: + Before you leap + Just take a peep + To see where you are going." + +Buddie, however, clung to her former opinion. "I like _Sammy Patch_ the +best," said she. + +"That," rejoined the singer, "is a matter of taste, as the donkey said +to the horse who preferred hay to thistles. Usually the public likes +best the very piece the composer himself cares least about. So wherever +I go I hear, 'Oh, Professor, do sing us that beautiful song about Sammy +Patch.' And I can't poke my head inside the Thistle Club but some donkey +bawls out, 'Here's Bray! Now we'll have a song. Sing us _Sammy Patch_, +old fellow.' Really, I've sung that song so many times I'm tired of the +sound of it." + +"It must be nice to be such a favorite," said Buddie. + +"Suppose we go up to the Corner and see what's stirring," suggested the +Donkey, with a yawn. + +"Oh, are _you_ going up to the Corner, too?" cried Buddie. "I am to meet +the Rabbit there at two o'clock. I hope it isn't late." + +The Donkey glanced skyward. + +"It isn't noon yet," said he. + +"How do you tell time?" inquired Buddie. + +"By the way it flies. Time flies, you know. You can tell a great many +birds that way, too." As he spoke the Donkey put his lute into one of +his bags and took down his sign. + +"You can ride if you wish," he offered graciously. + +"Thank you," said Buddie. And leaving the White Blackbird asleep on his +perch,--for, as Buddie said, he was having such a lovely nap it would be +a pity to wake him,--they set off through the wood. + +It was bad traveling for a short distance, but presently they came out +on an old log-road; and along this the Donkey ambled at an easy pace. On +both sides grew wild flowers in wonderful abundance, but, as Buddie +noticed, they were all of one kind--Enchanter's Nightshade. + +Buddie had also noticed, when she climbed to her comfortable seat, a +peculiar marking on the Donkey's broad back. It was bronze in color, and +in shape like a cross. + +"Perhaps it's a strawberry mark," she thought, "and he may not want to +talk about it." But curiosity got the better of her. + +"Oh, that?" said the Donkey, carelessly, in reply to a question. "That's +a Victoria Cross. I served three months with the British army in South +Africa, and was decorated for gallantry in leading a charge of the +ambulance corps. I shall have to ask you not to hang things on my neck. +It's all I can do to hold up my head." + +"Oh, excuse me," said Buddie, untying the sign, OLD SAWS RESET WHILE YOU +WAIT. + +"Hang it round your own neck," said the Donkey, and Buddie did so. + +"I often wonder," she said, "whether a horse doesn't sometimes get tired +holding his head out at the end of his neck. And as for a giraffe, I +don't see how he stands it." + +"Well, a giraffe's neck runs out at a more convenient angle," said the +Donkey. "Still, it _is_ tiresome without a check-rein. You hear a great +deal about a check-rein being a cruel invention, but, on the contrary, +it's a great blessing. Now, a nose-bag is a positive outrage, and the +more oats it contains the more of an imposition it is. People have the +queerest ideas!" + + + + +SELECTING THE FACULTY + +BY BAYNARD RUST HALL + + +Our Board of Trustees, it will be remembered, had been directed by the +Legislature to procure, as the ordinance called it, "Teachers for the +commencement of the State College at Woodville." That business, by the +Board, was committed to Dr. Sylvan and Robert Carlton--the most learned +gentleman of the body, and of--the New Purchase. Our honorable Board +will be more specially introduced hereafter; at present we shall bring +forward certain rejected candidates, that, like rejected prize essays, +they may be published, and _thus_ have their revenge. + +None can tell us how plenty good things are till he looks for them; and +hence, to the great surprise of the Committee, there seemed to be a +sudden growth and a large crop of persons even in and around Woodville, +either already qualified for the "Professorships," as we named them in +our publication, or who _could_ "qualify" by the time of election. As to +the "chair" named also in our publications, one very worthy and +disinterested schoolmaster offered, as a great collateral inducement for +his being elected, "_to find his own chair!_"--a vast saving to the +State, if the same chair I saw in Mr. Whackum's school-room. For his +chair there was one with a hickory bottom; and doubtless he would have +filled it, and even lapped over its edges, with equal dignity in the +recitation room of Big College. + +The Committee had, at an early day, given an invitation to the Rev. +Charles Clarence, A.M., of New Jersey, and his answer had been +affirmative; yet for political reasons we had been obliged to invite +competitors, or _make_ them, and we found and created "a right smart +sprinkle." + +Hopes of success were built on many things--for instance, on poverty; a +plea being entered that something ought to be done for the poor +fellow--on one's having taught a common school all his born days, who +now deserved to rise a peg--on political, or religious, or fanatical +partizan qualifications--and on pure patriotic principles, such as a +person's having been "born in a canebrake and rocked in a sugar trough." +On the other hand, a fat, dull-headed, and modest Englishman asked for a +place, because he had been born in Liverpool! and had seen the world +beyond the woods and waters, too! And another fussy, talkative, +pragmatical little gentleman rested his pretensions on his ability to +draw and paint maps!--not projecting them in roundabout scientific +processes, but in that speedy and elegant style in which young ladies +_copy_ maps at first chop boarding-schools! Nay, so transcendent seemed +Mr. Merchator's claims, when his _show_ or _sample_ maps were exhibited +to us, that some in our Board, and nearly everybody out of it, were +confident he would do for Professor of Mathematics and even Principal. + +But of all our unsuccessful candidates, we shall introduce by name only +two--Mr. James Jimmy, A.S.S., and Mr. Solomon Rapid, A. to Z. + +Mr. Jimmy, who aspired to the mathematical chair, was master of a small +school of all sexes, near Woodville. At the first, he was kindly, yet +honestly told, his knowledge was too limited and inaccurate; yet, +notwithstanding this, and some almost rude repulses afterward, he +persisted in his application and his hopes. To give evidence of +competency, he once told me he was arranging a new spelling-book, the +publication of which would make him known as a literary man, and be an +unspeakable advantage to "the rising generation." And this naturally +brought on the following colloquy about the work: + +"Ah! indeed! Mr. Jimmy?" + +"Yes, indeed, Mr. Carlton." + +"On what new principle do you go, sir?" + +"Why, sir, on the principles of nature and common sense. I allow +school-books for schools are all too powerful obstruse and hard-like to +be understood without exemplifying illustrations." + +"Yes, but Mr. Jimmy, how is a child's spelling-book to be made any +plainer?" + +"Why, sir, by clear explifications of the words in one column, by +exemplifying illustrations in the other." + +"I do not understand you, Mr. Jimmy, give me a specimen--" + +"Sir?" + +"An example--" + +"To be sure--here's a spes-a-example; you see, for instance, I put in +the spelling-column, C-r-e-a-m, _cream_, and here in the explification +column, I put the exemplifying illustration--_Unctious part of milk!_" + +We had asked, at our first interview, if our candidate was an +algebraist, and his reply was _negative_; but, "he allowed he could +'_qualify_' by the time of election, as he was powerful good at figures, +and had cyphered clean through every arithmetic he had ever seen, the +rule of promiscuous questions and all!" Hence, some weeks after, as I +was passing his door, on my way to a squirrel hunt, with a party of +friends, Mr. Jimmy, hurrying out with a slate in his hand, begged me to +stop a moment, and thus addressed me: + +"Well, Mr. Carlton, this algebra is a most powerful thing--ain't it?" + +"Indeed it is, Mr. Jimmy--have you been looking into it?" + +"Looking into it! I have been all through this here fust part; and by +election time, I allow I'll be ready for examination." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, sir! but it is such a pretty thing! Only to think of cyphering by +letters! Why, sir, the sums come out, and bring the answers exactly like +figures. Jist stop a minute--look here: _a_ stands for 6, and _b_ stands +for 8, and _c_ stands for 4, and _d_ stands for figure 10; now if I say +a plus b minus c equals d, it is all the same as if I said, 6 is 6 and 8 +makes 14, and 4 subtracted, leaves 10! Why, sir, I done a whole slate +full of letters and signs; and afterward, when I tried by figures, they +every one of them came out right and brung the answer! I mean to cypher +by letters altogether." + +"Mr. Jimmy, my company is nearly out of sight--if you can get along this +way through simple and quadratic equations by our meeting, your chance +will not be so bad--good morning, sir." + +But our man of "letters" quit cyphering the new way, and returned to +plain figures long before reaching equations; and so he could not become +our professor. Yet anxious to do us all the good in his power, after our +college opened, he waited on me, a leading trustee, with a proposal to +board our students, and authorized me to publish--"as how Mr. James +Jimmy will take strange students--students not belonging to +Woodville--to board, at one dollar a week, and find everything, washing +included, and will black their _shoes_ three times a week to _boot_, +and--_give them their dog-wood and cherry-bitters every morning into the +bargain!_" + +The most extraordinary candidate, however, was Mr. Solomon Rapid. He was +now somewhat advanced into the shaving age, and was ready to assume +offices the most opposite in character; although justice compels us to +say Mr. Rapid was as fit for one thing as another. Deeming it waste of +time to prepare for any station till he was certain of obtaining it, he +wisely demanded the place first, and then set to work to become +qualified for its duties, being, I suspect, the very man, or some +relation of his, who is recorded as not knowing whether he could read +Greek, as he had never tried. And, besides, Mr. Solomon Rapid contended +that all offices, from president down to fence-viewer, were open to +every white American citizen; and that every republican had a +blood-bought right to seek any that struck his fancy; and if the profits +were less, or the duties more onerous than had been anticipated, that a +man ought to resign and try another. + +Naturally, therefore, Mr. Rapid thought he would like to sit in our +chair of languages, or have some employment in the State college; and +hence he called for that purpose on Dr. Sylvan, who, knowing the +candidate's character, maliciously sent him to me. Accordingly, the +young gentleman presented himself, and without ceremony, instantly made +known his business thus: + +"I heerd, sir, you wanted somebody to teach the State school, and I'm +come to let you know I'm willing to take the place." + +"Yes, sir, we are going to elect a professor of languages who is to be +the principal and a professor--" + +"Well, I don't care which I take, but I'm willing to be the principal. +I can teach sifring, reading, writing, joggerfee, surveying, grammur, +spelling, definition, parsin--" + +"Are you a linguist?" + +"Sir?" + +"You, of course, understand the dead languages?" + +"Well, can't say I ever seed much of them, though I have heerd tell of +them; but I can soon larn them--they ain't more than a few of them I +allow?" + +"Oh! my dear sir, it is not possible--we--can't--" + +"Well, I never seed what I couldn't larn about as smart as anybody--" + +"Mr. Rapid, I do not mean to question your abilities; but if you are now +wholly unacquainted with the dead languages, it is impossible for you or +any other talented man to learn them under four or five years." + +"Pshoo! foo! I'll bet I larn one in three weeks! Try me, sir,--let's +have the furst one furst--how many are there?" + +"Mr. Rapid, it is utterly impossible; but if you insist, I will loan you +a Latin book--" + +"That's your sort, let's have it, that's all I want, fair play." + +Accordingly, I handed him a copy of Historiae Sacrae, with which he soon +went away, saying, he "didn't allow it would take long to git through +Latin, if 'twas only sich a thin patch of a book as that." + +In a few weeks, to my no small surprise, Mr. Solomon Rapid again +presented himself; and drawing forth the book began with a triumphant +expression of countenance: + +"Well, sir, I have done the Latin." + +"Done the Latin!" + +"Yes, I can read it as fast as English." + +"Read it as fast as English!!" + +"Yes, as fast as English--and I didn't find it hard at all." + +"May I try you on a page?" + +"Try away, try away; that's what I've come for." + +"Please read here then, Mr. Rapid;" and in order to give him a fair +chance, I pointed to the first lines of the first chapter, viz.: "In +principio Deus creavit coelum et terram intra sex dies; primo die +fecit lucem," etc. + +"That, sir?" and then he read thus, "In prinspo duse creevit kalelum et +terrum intra sex dyes--primmo dye fe-fe-sit looseum," etc. + +"That will do, Mr. Rapid--" + +"Ah! ha! I told you so." + +"Yes, yes--but translate." + +"Translate!" (eyebrows elevating.) + +"Yes, translate, render it." + +"Render it!! how's that?" (forehead more wrinkled.) + +"Why, yes, render it into English--give me the meaning of it." + +"MEANING!!" (staring full in my face, his eyes like saucers, and +forehead wrinkled with the furrows of eighty)--"MEANING!! I didn't know +it _had_ any meaning. I thought it was a DEAD language!!" + + * * * * * + +Well, reader, I am glad you are _not_ laughing at Mr. Rapid; for how +should anything _dead_ speak out so as to be understood? And indeed, +does not his definition suit the vexed feelings of some young gentlemen +attempting to read Latin without any interlinear translation? and who +inwardly, cursing both book and teacher, blast their souls "if they can +make any sense out of it." The ancients may yet speak in their own +languages to a few; but to most who boast the honor of their +acquaintance, they are certainly dead in the sense of Solomon Rapid. + + + + +LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay, + An' wash the cups and saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away, + An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep, + An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an'-keep; + An' all us other childern, when the supper things is done, + We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest fun + A-list'nin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about, + An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you + Ef you + Don't + Watch + Out! + + Onc't there was a little boy wouldn't say his pray'rs-- + An' when he went to bed at night, away up stairs, + His mammy heerd him holler, an' his daddy heerd him bawl, + An' when they turn't the kivvers down, he wasn't there at all! + An' they seeked him in the rafter-room, an' cubby-hole, an' press, + An' seeked him up the chimbly-flue, an' ever'wheres, I guess; + But all they ever found was thist his pants an' roundabout! + An' the Gobble-uns'll git you + Ef you + Don't + Watch + Out! + + An' one time a little girl 'ud allus laugh an' grin, + An' make fun of ever' one, an' all her blood-an'-kin; + An' onc't when they was "company," an' ole folks was there, + She mocked 'em an' shocked 'em, an' said she didn't care! + An' thist as she kicked her heels, an' turn't to run an' hide, + They was two great big Black Things a-standin' by her side, + An' they snatched her through the ceilin' 'fore she knowed what + she's about! + An' the Gobble-uns'll git you + Ef you + Don't + Watch + Out! + + An' little Orphant Annie says, when the blaze is blue, + An' the lampwick sputters, an' the wind goes woo-oo! + An' you hear the crickets quit, an' the moon is gray, + An' the lightnin'-bugs in dew is all squenched away,-- + You better mind yer parents, and yer teachers fond and dear, + An' churish them 'at loves you, an' dry the orphant's tear, + An' he'p the pore an' needy ones 'at clusters all about, + Er the Gobble-uns'll git you + Ef you + Don't + Watch + Out! + + + + +HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY + +BY CHARLES GODFREY LELAND + + Hans Breitmann gife a barty, + Dey had biano-blayin; + I felled in lofe mit a Merican frau, + Her name vas Madilda Yane. + She hat haar as prown ash a pretzel, + Her eyes vas himmel-plue, + Und ven dey looket indo mine, + Dey shplit mine heart in two. + + Hans Breitmann gife a barty, + I vent dere you'll pe pound. + I valtzet mit Madilda Yane + Und vent shpinnen round und round. + De pootiest Fraeulein in de House, + She vayed 'pout dwo hoondred pound, + Und efery dime she gife a shoomp + She make de vindows sound. + + Hans Breitmann gife a barty, + I dells you it cost him dear. + Dey rolled in more ash sefen kecks + Of foost-rate Lager Beer. + Und venefer dey knocks de shpicket in + De Deutschers gifes a cheer. + I dinks dat so vine a barty, + Nefer coom to a het dis year. + + Hans Breitmann gife a barty; + Dere all vas Souse und Brouse, + Ven de sooper comed in, de gompany + Did make demselfs to house; + Dey ate das Brot and Gensy broost, + De Bratwurst and Braten fine, + Und vash der Abendessen down + Mit four parrels of Neckarwein. + + Hans Breitmann gife a barty; + We all cot troonk ash bigs. + I poot mine mout to a parrel of bier + Und emptied it oop mit a schwigs. + Und denn I gissed Madilda Yane + Und she shlog me on de kop, + Und de gompany fited mit daple-lecks + Dill de coonshtable made oos shtop. + + Hans Breitmann gife a barty-- + Where ish dat barty now! + Where ish de lofely golden cloud + Dat float on de moundain's prow? + Where ish de himmelstrablende Stern-- + De shtar of de shpirit's light? + All goned afay mit de Lager Beer-- + Afay in de ewigkeit! + + + + +ROLLO LEARNING TO READ + +BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE + + +When Rollo was five years young, his father said to him one evening: + +"Rollo, put away your roller skates and bicycle, carry that rowing +machine out into the hall, and come to me. It is time for you to learn +to read." + +Then Rollo's father opened the book which he had sent home on a truck +and talked to the little boy about it. It was Bancroft's History of the +United States, half complete in twenty-three volumes. Rollo's father +explained to Rollo and Mary his system of education, with special +reference to Rollo's learning to read. His plan was that Mary should +teach Rollo fifteen hours a day for ten years, and by that time Rollo +would be half through the beginning of the first volume, and would like +it very much indeed. + +Rollo was delighted at the prospect. He cried aloud: + +"Oh, papa! thank you very much. When I read this book clear through, all +the way to the end of the last volume, may I have another little book to +read?" + +"No," replied his father, "that may not be; because you will never get +to the last volume of this one. For as fast as you read one volume, the +author of this history, or his heirs, executors, administrators, or +assigns, will write another as an appendix. So even though you should +live to be a very old man, like the boy preacher, this history will +always be twenty-three volumes ahead of you. Now, Mary and Rollo, this +will be a hard task (pronounced tawsk) for both of you, and Mary must +remember that Rollo is a very little boy, and must be very patient and +gentle." + +The next morning after the one preceding it, Mary began the first +lesson. In the beginning she was so gentle and patient that her mother +went away and cried, because she feared her dear little daughter was +becoming too good for this sinful world, and might soon spread her wings +and fly away and be an angel. + +But in the space of a short time, the novelty of the expedition wore +off, and Mary resumed running her temper--which was of the +old-fashioned, low-pressure kind, just forward of the fire-box--on its +old schedule. When she pointed to "A" for the seventh time, and Rollo +said "W," she tore the page out by the roots, hit her little brother +such a whack over the head with the big book that it set his birthday +back six weeks, slapped him twice, and was just going to bite him, when +her mother came in. Mary told her that Rollo had fallen down stairs and +torn his book and raised that dreadful lump on his head. This time +Mary's mother restrained her emotion, and Mary cried. But it was not +because she feared her mother was pining away. Oh, no; it was her +mother's rugged health and virile strength that grieved Mary, as long as +the seance lasted, which was during the entire performance. + +That evening Rollo's father taught Rollo his lesson and made Mary sit by +and observe his methods, because, he said, that would be normal +instruction for her. He said: + +"Mary, you must learn to control your temper and curb your impatience if +you want to wear low-neck dresses, and teach school. You must be sweet +and patient, or you will never succeed as a teacher. Now, Rollo, what is +this letter?" + +"I dunno," said Rollo, resolutely. + +"That is A," said his father, sweetly. + +"Huh," replied Rollo, "I knowed that." + +"Then why did you not say so?" replied his father, so sweetly that +Jonas, the hired boy, sitting in the corner, licked his chops. + +Rollo's father went on with the lesson: + +"What is this, Rollo?" + +"I dunno," said Rollo, hesitatingly. + +"Sure?" asked his father. "You do not know what it is?" + +"Nuck," said Rollo. + +"It is A," said his father. + +"A what?" asked Rollo. + +"A nothing," replied his father, "it is just A. Now, what is it?" + +"Just A," said Rollo. + +"Do not be flip, my son," said Mr. Holliday, "but attend to your lesson. +What letter is this?" + +"I dunno," said Rollo. + +"Don't fib to me," said his father, gently, "you said a minute ago that +you knew. That is N." + +"Yes, sir," replied Rollo, meekly. Rollo, although he was a little boy, +was no slouch, if he did wear bibs; he knew where he lived without +looking at the door-plate. When it came time to be meek, there was no +boy this side of the planet Mars who could be meeker, on shorter notice. +So he said, "Yes, sir," with that subdued and well pleased alacrity of a +boy who has just been asked to guess the answer to the conundrum, "Will +you have another piece of pie?" + +"Well," said his father, rather suddenly, "what is it?" + +"M," said Rollo, confidently. + +"N!" yelled his father, in three-line Gothic. + +"N," echoed Rollo, in lower case nonpareil. + +"B-a-n," said his father, "what does that spell?" + +"Cat?" suggested Rollo, a trifle uncertainly. + +"Cat?" snapped his father, with a sarcastic inflection, "b-a-n, cat! +Where were you raised? Ban! B-a-n--Ban! Say it! Say it, or I'll get at +you with a skate-strap!" + +"B-a-m, band," said Rollo, who was beginning to wish that he had a +rain-check and could come back and see the remaining innings some other +day. + +"Ba-a-a-an!" shouted his father, "B-a-n, Ban, Ban, Ban! Now say Ban!" + +"Ban," said Rollo, with a little gasp. + +"That's right," his father said, in an encouraging tone; "you will learn +to read one of these years if you give your mind to it. All he needs, +you see, Mary, is a teacher who doesn't lose patience with him the first +time he makes a mistake. Now, Rollo, how do you spell, B-a-n--Ban?" + +Rollo started out timidly on c-a--then changed to d-o,--and finally +compromised on h-e-n. + +Mr. Holiday made a pass at him with Volume I, but Rollo saw it coming +and got out of the way. + +"B-a-n!" his father shouted, "B-a-n, Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Ban! Now go on, +if you think you know how to spell that! What comes next? Oh, you're +enough to tire the patience of Job! I've a good mind to make you learn +by the Pollard system, and begin where you leave off! Go ahead, why +don't you? Whatta you waiting for? Read on! What comes next? Why, croft, +of course; anybody ought to know that--c-r-o-f-t, croft, Bancroft! What +does that apostrophe mean? I mean, what does that punctuation mark +between t and s stand for? You don't know? Take that, then! (whack). +What comes after Bancroft? Spell it! Spell it, I tell you, and don't be +all night about it! Can't, eh? Well, read it then; if you can't spell +it, read it. H-i-s-t-o-r-y-ry, history; Bancroft's History of the United +States! Now what does that spell? I mean, spell that! Spell it! Oh, go +away! Go to bed! Stupid, stupid child," he added as the little boy went +weeping out of the room, "he'll never learn anything so long as he +lives. I declare he has tired me all out, and I used to teach school in +Trivoli township, too. Taught one whole winter in district number three +when Nick Worthington was county superintendent, and had my salary--look +here, Mary, what do you find in that English grammar to giggle about? +You go to bed, too, and listen to me--if Rollo can't read that whole +book clear through without making a mistake to-morrow night, you'll wish +you had been born without a back, that's all." + +The following morning, when Rollo's father drove away to business, he +paused a moment as Rollo stood at the gate for a final good-by kiss--for +Rollo's daily good-byes began at the door and lasted as long as his +father was in sight--Mr. Holliday said: + +"Some day, Rollo, you will thank me for teaching you to read." + +"Yes, sir," replied Rollo, respectfully, and then added, "but not this +day." + +Rollo's head, though it had here and there transient bumps consequent +upon foot-ball practice, was not naturally or permanently hilly. On the +contrary, it was quite level. + + + SPELL AND DEFINE: + + Tact + Exasperation + Lamb + Imperturbability + Red-hot + Philosopher + Ebullition + Knout + Terrier + + Which end of a rattan hurts the more?--Why does reading make a full + man?--Is an occasional whipping good for a boy?--At precisely what + age does corporal punishment cease to be effective?--And + why?--State, in exact terms, how much better are grown up people + without the rod, than little people with it.--And why?--When would + a series of good sound whippings have been of the greatest benefit + to Solomon, when he was a godly young man, or an idolatrous old + one?--In order to reform this world thoroughly, then, whom should + we thrash, the children or the grown-up people?--And why?--If, + then, the whipping post should be abolished in Delaware, why should + it be retained in the nursery and the school room?--Write on the + board, in large letters, the following sentence: + + If a boy ten years old should + be whipped for breaking a window, + what should be done to a man + thirty-five years old for breaking + the third commandment? + + + + +ELIZABETH ELIZA WRITES A PAPER + +BY LUCRETIA P. HALE + + +Elizabeth Eliza joined the Circumambient Club with the idea that it +would be a long time before she, a new member, would have to read a +paper. She would have time to hear the other papers read, and to see how +it was done; and she would find it easy when her turn came. By that time +she would have some ideas; and long before she would be called upon, she +would have leisure to sit down and write out something. But a year +passed away, and the time was drawing near. She had, meanwhile, devoted +herself to her studies, and had tried to inform herself on all subjects +by way of preparation. She had consulted one of the old members of the +Club as to the choice of a subject. + +"Oh, write about anything," was the answer,--"anything you have been +thinking of." + +Elizabeth Eliza was forced to say she had not been thinking lately. She +had not had time. The family had moved, and there was always an +excitement about something, that prevented her sitting down to think. + +"Why not write on your family adventures?" asked the old member. + +Elizabeth Eliza was sure her mother would think it made them too public; +and most of the Club papers, she observed, had some thought in them. She +preferred to find an idea. + +So she set herself to the occupation of thinking. She went out on the +piazza to think; she stayed in the house to think. She tried a corner of +the china-closet. She tried thinking in the cars, and lost her +pocket-book; she tried it in the garden, and walked into the strawberry +bed. In the house and out of the house, it seemed to be the same,--she +could not think of anything to think of. For many weeks she was seen +sitting on the sofa or in the window, and nobody disturbed her. "She is +thinking about her paper," the family would say, but she only knew that +she could not think of anything. + +Agamemnon told her that many writers waited till the last moment, when +inspiration came, which was much finer than anything studied. Elizabeth +Eliza thought it would be terrible to wait till the last moment, if the +inspiration should not come! She might combine the two ways,--wait till +a few days before the last, and then sit down and write anyhow. This +would give a chance for inspiration, while she would not run the risk of +writing nothing. + +She was much discouraged. Perhaps she had better give it up? But, no; +everybody wrote a paper: if not now, she would have to do it some time! + +And at last the idea of a subject came to her! But it was as hard to +find a moment to write as to think. The morning was noisy, till the +little boys had gone to school; for they had begun again upon their +regular course, with the plan of taking up the study of cider in +October. And after the little boys had gone to school, now it was one +thing, now it was another,--the china-closet to be cleaned, or one of +the neighbors in to look at the sewing-machine. She tried after dinner, +but would fall asleep. She felt that evening would be the true time, +after the cares of the day were over. + +The Peterkins had wire mosquito-nets all over the house,--at every door +and every window. They were as eager to keep out the flies as the +mosquitoes. The doors were all furnished with strong springs, that +pulled the doors to as soon as they were opened. The little boys had +practised running in and out of each door, and slamming it after them. +This made a good deal of noise, for they had gained great success in +making one door slam directly after another, and at times would keep up +a running volley of artillery, as they called it, with the slamming of +the doors. Mr. Peterkin, however, preferred it to flies. + +So Elizabeth Eliza felt she would venture to write of a summer evening +with all the windows open. + +She seated herself one evening in the library, between two large +kerosene lamps, with paper, pen, and ink before her. It was a beautiful +night, with the smell of the roses coming in through the mosquito-nets, +and just the faintest odor of kerosene by her side. She began upon her +work. But what was her dismay! She found herself immediately surrounded +with mosquitoes. They attacked her at every point. They fell upon her +hand as she moved it to the inkstand; they hovered, buzzing, over her +head; they planted themselves under the lace of her sleeve. If she moved +her left hand to frighten them off from one point, another band fixed +themselves upon her right hand. Not only did they flutter and sting, but +they sang in a heathenish manner, distracting her attention as she tried +to write, as she tried to waft them off. Nor was this all. Myriads of +June-bugs and millers hovered round, flung themselves into the lamps, +and made disagreeable funeral-pyres of themselves, tumbling noisily on +her paper in their last unpleasant agonies. Occasionally one darted with +a rush toward Elizabeth Eliza's head. + +If there was anything Elizabeth Eliza had a terror of it was a June-bug. +She had heard that they had a tendency to get into the hair. One had +been caught in the hair of a friend of hers, who had long, luxuriant +hair. But the legs of the June-bug were caught in it like fishhooks, and +it had to be cut out, and the June-bug was only extricated by +sacrificing large masses of the flowing locks. + +Elizabeth Eliza flung her handkerchief over her head. Could she +sacrifice what hair she had to the claims of literature? She gave a cry +of dismay. + +The little boys rushed in a moment to the rescue. They flapped +newspapers, flung sofa-cushions; they offered to stand by her side with +fly-whisks, that she might be free to write. But the struggle was too +exciting for her, and the flying insects seemed to increase. Moths of +every description--large brown moths, small, delicate white +millers--whirled about her, while the irritating hum of the mosquito +kept on more than ever. Mr. Peterkin and the rest of the family came in +to inquire about the trouble. It was discovered that each of the little +boys had been standing in the opening of a wire door for some time, +watching to see when Elizabeth Eliza would have made her preparations +and would begin to write. Countless numbers of dorbugs and winged +creatures of every description had taken occasion to come in. It was +found that they were in every part of the house. + +"We might open all the blinds and screens," suggested Agamemnon, "and +make a vigorous onslaught and drive them all out at once." + +"I do believe there are more inside than out now," said Solomon John. + +"The wire nets, of course," said Agamemnon, "keep them in now." + +"We might go outside," proposed Solomon John, "and drive in all that are +left. Then to-morrow morning, when they are all torpid, kill them and +make collections of them." + +Agamemnon had a tent which he had provided in case he should ever go to +the Adirondacks, and he proposed using it for the night. The little boys +were wild for this. + +Mrs. Peterkin thought she and Elizabeth Eliza would prefer trying to +sleep in the house. But perhaps Elizabeth Eliza would go on with her +paper with more comfort out of doors. + +A student's lamp was carried out, and she was established on the steps +of the back piazza, while screens were all carefully closed to prevent +the mosquitoes and insects from flying out. But it was no use. There +were outside still swarms of winged creatures that plunged themselves +about her, and she had not been there long before a huge miller flung +himself into the lamp and put it out. She gave up for the evening. + +Still the paper went on. "How fortunate," exclaimed Elizabeth Eliza, +"that I did not put it off till the last evening!" Having once begun, +she persevered in it at every odd moment of the day. Agamemnon presented +her with a volume of "Synonymes," which was a great service to her. She +read her paper, in its various stages, to Agamemnon first, for his +criticism, then to her father in the library, then to Mr. and Mrs. +Peterkin together, next to Solomon John, and afterward to the whole +family assembled. She was almost glad that the lady from Philadelphia +was not in town, as she wished it to be her own unaided production. She +declined all invitations for the week before the night of the Club, and +on the very day she kept her room with _eau sucree_, that she might save +her voice. Solomon John provided her with Brown's Bronchial Troches when +the evening came, and Mrs. Peterkin advised a handkerchief over her +head, in case of June-bugs. + +It was, however, a cool night. Agamemnon escorted her to the house. + +The Club met at Ann Maria Bromwick's. No gentlemen were admitted to the +regular meetings. There were what Solomon John called "occasional annual +meetings," to which they were invited, when all the choicest papers of +the year were re-read. + +Elizabeth Eliza was placed at the head of the room, at a small table, +with a brilliant gas-jet on one side. It was so cool the windows could +be closed. Mrs. Peterkin, as a guest, sat in the front row. + +This was her paper, as Elizabeth Eliza read it, for she frequently +inserted fresh expressions:-- + + +THE SUN + +It is impossible that much can be known about it. This is why we have +taken it up as a subject. We mean the sun that lights us by day and +leaves us by night. In the first place, it is so far off. No +measuring-tapes could reach it; and both the earth and the sun are +moving about us, that it would be difficult to adjust ladders to reach +it, if we could. Of course, people have written about it, and there are +those who have told us how many miles off it is. But it is a very large +number, with a great many figures in it; and though it is taught in most +if not all of our public schools, it is a chance if any one of the +scholars remembers exactly how much it is. + +It is the same with its size. We can not, as we have said, reach it by +ladders to measure it; and if we did reach it, we should have no +measuring-tapes large enough, and those that shut up with springs are +difficult to use in a high places. We are told, it is true, in a great +many of the school-books, the size of the sun; but, again, very few of +those who have learned the number have been able to remember it after +they have recited it, even if they remembered it then. And almost all of +the scholars have lost their school-books, or have neglected to carry +them home, and so they are not able to refer to them,--I mean, after +leaving school. I must say that is the case with me, I should say with +us, though it was different. The older ones gave their school-books to +the younger ones, who took them back to school to lose them, or who have +destroyed them when there were no younger ones to go to school. I should +say there are such families. What I mean is, the fact that in some +families there are no younger children to take off the school-books. But +even then they are put away on upper shelves, in closets or in attics, +and seldom found if wanted,--if then, dusty. + +Of course, we all know of a class of persons called astronomers, who +might be able to give us information on the subject in hand, and who +probably do furnish what information is found in school-books. It should +be observed, however, that these astronomers carry on their observations +always in the night. Now, it is well known that the sun does not shine +in the night. Indeed, that is one of the peculiarities of the night, +that there is no sun to light us, so we have to go to bed as long as +there is nothing else we can do without its light, unless we use lamps, +gas, or kerosene, which is very well for the evening, but would be +expensive all night long; the same with candles. How, then, can we +depend upon their statements, if not made from their own observation,--I +mean, if they never saw the sun? + +We can not expect that astronomers should give us any valuable +information with regard to the sun, which they never see, their +occupation compelling them to be up at night. It is quite likely that +they never see it; for we should not expect them to sit up all day as +well as all night, as, under such circumstances, their lives would not +last long. + +Indeed, we are told that their name is taken from the word _aster_, +which means "star;" the word is "aster--know--more." This, doubtless, +means that they know more about the stars than other things. We see, +therefore, that their knowledge is confined to the stars, and we can not +trust what they have to tell us of the sun. + +There are other asters which should not be mixed up with these,--we mean +those growing by the wayside in the fall of the year. The astronomers, +from their nocturnal habits, can scarcely be acquainted with them; but +as it does not come within our province, we will not inquire. + +We are left, then, to seek our own information about the sun. But we are +met with a difficulty. To know a thing, we must look at it. How can we +look at the sun? It is so very bright that our eyes are dazzled in +gazing upon it. We have to turn away, or they would be put out,--the +sight, I mean. It is true, we might use smoked glass, but that is apt to +come off on the nose. How, then, if we can not look at it, can we find +out about it? The noonday would seem to be the better hour, when it is +the sunniest; but, besides injuring the eyes, it is painful to the neck +to look up for a long time. It is easy to say that our examination of +this heavenly body should take place at sunrise, when we could look at +it more on a level, without having to endanger the spine. But how many +people are up at sunrise? Those who get up early do it because they are +compelled to, and have something else to do than look at the sun. + +The milkman goes forth to carry the daily milk, the ice-man to leave +the daily ice. But either of these would be afraid of exposing their +vehicles to the heating orb of day,--the milkman afraid of turning the +milk, the ice-man timorous of melting his ice--and they probably avoid +those directions where they shall meet the sun's rays. The student, who +might inform us, has been burning the midnight oil. The student is not +in the mood to consider the early sun. + +There remains to us the evening, also,--the leisure hour of the day. +But, alas! our houses are not built with an adaptation to this subject. +They are seldom made to look toward the sunset. A careful inquiry and +close observation, such as have been called for in preparation of this +paper, have developed the fact that not a single house in this town +faces the sunset! There may be windows looking that way, but in such a +case there is always a barn between. I can testify to this from personal +observations, because, with my brothers, we have walked through the +several streets of this town with note-books, carefully noting every +house looking upon the sunset, and have found none from which the sunset +could be studied. Sometimes it was the next house, sometimes a row of +houses, or its own wood-house, that stood in the way. + +Of course, a study of the sun might be pursued out of doors. But in +summer, sunstroke would be likely to follow; in winter, neuralgia and +cold. And how could you consult your books, your dictionaries, your +encyclopaedias? There seems to be no hour of the day for studying the +sun. You might go to the East to see it at its rising, or to the West to +gaze upon its setting, but--you don't. + +Here Elizabeth Eliza came to a pause. She had written five different +endings, and had brought them all, thinking, when the moment came, she +would choose one of them. She was pausing to select one, and +inadvertently said, to close the phrase, "you don't." She had not meant +to use the expression, which she would not have thought sufficiently +imposing,--it dropped out unconsciously,--but it was received as a close +with rapturous applause. + +She had read slowly, and now that the audience applauded at such a +length, she had time to feel she was much exhausted and glad of an end. +Why not stop there, though there were some pages more? Applause, too, +was heard from the outside. Some of the gentlemen had come,--Mr. +Peterkin, Agamemnon, and Solomon John, with others,--and demanded +admission. + +"Since it is all over, let them in," said Ann Maria Bromwick. + +Elizabeth Eliza assented, and rose to shake hands with her applauding +friends. + + + + +MR. STIVER'S HORSE + +BY JAMES MONTGOMERY BAILEY + + +The other morning at breakfast Mrs. Perkins observed that Mr. Stiver, in +whose house we live, had been called away, and wanted to know if I would +see to his horse through the day. + +I knew that Mr. Stiver owned a horse, because I occasionally saw him +drive out of the yard, and I saw the stable every day,--but what kind of +a horse I didn't know. I never went into the stable, for two reasons: in +the first place, I had no desire to; and, secondly, I didn't know as the +horse cared particularly for company. + +I never took care of a horse in my life; and, had I been of a less +hopeful nature, the charge Mr. Stiver had left with me might have had a +very depressing effect; but I told Mrs. Perkins I would do it. + +"You know how to take care of a horse, don't you?" said she. + +I gave her a reassuring wink. In fact, I knew so little about it that I +didn't think it safe to converse more fluently than by winks. + +After breakfast I seized a toothpick and walked out towards the stable. +There was nothing particular to do, as Stiver had given him his +breakfast, and I found him eating it; so I looked around. The horse +looked around, too, and stared pretty hard at me. There was but little +said on either side. I hunted up the location of the feed, and then sat +down on a peck measure and fell to studying the beast. There is a wide +difference in horses. Some of them will kick you over and never look +around to see what becomes of you. I don't like a disposition like that, +and I wondered if Stiver's horse was one of them. + +When I came home at noon I went straight to the stable. The animal was +there all right. Stiver hadn't told me what to give him for dinner, and +I had not given the subject any thought; but I went to the oat-box and +filled the peck measure and sallied boldly up to the manger. + +When he saw the oats he almost smiled; this pleased and amused him. I +emptied them into the trough, and left him above me to admire the way I +parted my hair behind. I just got my head up in time to save the whole +of it. He had his ears back, his mouth open, and looked as if he were on +the point of committing murder. I went out and filled the measure again, +and climbed up the side of the stall and emptied it on top of him. He +brought his head up so suddenly at this that I immediately got down, +letting go of everything to do it. I struck on the sharp edge of a +barrel, rolled over a couple of times, then disappeared under a +hay-cutter. The peck measure went down on the other side, and got +mysteriously tangled up in that animal's heels, and he went to work at +it, and then ensued the most dreadful noise I ever heard in all my life, +and I have been married eighteen years. + +It did seem as if I never would get out from under that hay-cutter; and +all the while I was struggling and wrenching myself and the cutter +apart, that awful beast was kicking around in the stall, and making the +most appalling sound imaginable. + +When I got out I found Mrs. Perkins at the door. She had heard the +racket, and had sped out to the stable, her only thought being of me and +three stove-lids which she had under her arm, and one of which she was +about to fire at the beast. + +This made me mad. + +"Go away, you unfortunate idiot!" I shouted: "do you want to knock my +brains out?" For I remembered seeing Mrs. Perkins sling a missile once +before, and that I nearly lost an eye by the operation, although +standing on the other side of the house at the time. + +She retired at once. And at the same time the animal quieted down, but +there was nothing left of that peck measure, not even the maker's name. + +I followed Mrs. Perkins into the house, and had her do me up, and then I +sat down in a chair and fell into a profound strain of meditation. After +a while I felt better, and went out to the stable again. The horse was +leaning against the stable stall, with eyes half closed, and appeared to +be very much engrossed in thought. + +"Step off to the left," I said, rubbing his back. + +He didn't step. I got the pitchfork and punched him in the leg with the +handle. He immediately raised up both hind legs at once, and that fork +flew out of my hands, and went rattling up against the timbers above, +and came down again in an instant, the end of the handle rapping me with +such force on the top of the head that I sat right down on the floor +under the impression that I was standing in front of a drug-store in the +evening. I went back to the house and got some more stuff on me. But I +couldn't keep away from that stable. I went out there again. The thought +struck me that what the horse wanted was exercise. If that thought had +been an empty glycerin-can, it would have saved a windfall of luck for +me. + +But exercise would tone him down, and exercise him I should. I laughed +to myself to think how I would trounce him around the yard. I didn't +laugh again that afternoon. I got him unhitched, and then wondered how I +was to get him out of the stall without carrying him out. I pushed, but +he wouldn't budge. I stood looking at him in the face, thinking of +something to say, when he suddenly solved the difficulty by veering +about and plunging for the door. I followed, as a matter of course, +because I had a tight hold on the rope, and hit about every +partition-stud worth speaking of on that side of the barn. Mrs. Perkins +was at the window and saw us come out of the door. She subsequently +remarked that we came out skipping like two innocent children. The +skipping was entirely unintentional on my part. I felt as if I stood on +the verge of eternity. My legs may have skipped, but my mind was filled +with awe. + +I took the animal out to exercise him. He exercised me before I got +through with it. He went around a few times in a circle; then he stopped +suddenly, spread out his forelegs, and looked at me. Then he leaned +forward a little, and hoisted both hind legs, and threw about two +coal-hods of mud over a line full of clothes Mrs. Perkins had just hung +out. + +That excellent lady had taken a position at the window, and, whenever +the evolutions of the awful beast permitted, I caught a glance of her +features. She appeared to be very much interested in the proceedings; +but the instant that the mud flew, she disappeared from the window, and +a moment later she appeared on the stoop with a long poker in her hand, +and fire enough in her eye to heat it red-hot. + +Just then Stiver's horse stood up on his hind legs and tried to hug me +with the others. This scared me. A horse never shows his strength to +such advantage as when he is coming down on you like a frantic +pile-driver. I instantly dodged, and the cold sweat fairly boiled out +of me. + +It suddenly came over me that I had once figured in a similar position +years ago. My grandfather owned a little white horse that would get up +from a meal at Delmonico's to kick the President of the United States. +He sent me to the lot one day, and unhappily suggested that I often went +after that horse and suffered all kinds of defeat in getting him out of +the pasture, but I had never tried to ride him. Heaven knows I never +thought of it. I had my usual trouble with him that day. He tried to +jump over me, and push me down in a mud-hole, and finally got up on his +hind legs and came waltzing after me with facilities enough to convert +me into hash, but I turned and just made for that fence with all the +agony a prospect of instant death could crowd into me. If our candidate +for the Presidency had run one-half as well, there would be seventy-five +postmasters in Danbury to-day, instead of one. + +I got him out finally, and then he was quiet enough, and I took him up +alongside the fence and got on him. He stopped an instant, one brief +instant, and then tore off down the road at a frightful speed. I lay +down on him and clasped my hands tightly around his neck, and thought of +my home. When we got to the stable I was confident he would stop, but he +didn't. He drove straight at the door. It was a low door, just high +enough to permit him to go in at lightning speed, but there was no room +for me. I saw if I struck that stable the struggle would be a very brief +one. I thought this all over in an instant, and then, spreading put my +arms and legs, emitted a scream, and the next moment I was bounding +about in the filth of that stable-yard. All this passed through my mind +as Stiver's horse went up into the air. It frightened Mrs. Perkins +dreadfully. + +"Why, you old fool!" she said; "why don't you get rid of him?" + +"How can I?" said I, in desperation. + +"Why, there are a thousand ways," said she. + +This is just like a woman. How differently a statesman would have +answered! + +But I could think of only two ways to dispose of the beast. I could +either swallow him where he stood and then sit down on him, or I could +crawl inside of him and kick him to death. + +But I was saved either of these expedients by his coming towards me so +abruptly that I dropped the rope in terror, and then he turned about, +and, kicking me full of mud, shot for the gate, ripping the clothes-line +in two, and went on down the street at a horrible gallop, with two of +Mrs. Perkins' garments, which he hastily snatched from the line, +floating over his neck in a very picturesque manner. + +So I was afterwards told. I was too full of mud myself to see the way +into the house. + +Stiver got his horse all right, and stays at home to care for him. Mrs. +Perkins has gone to her mother's to recuperate, and I am healing as fast +as possible. + + + + +THE CRIMSON CORD[1] + +BY ELLIS PARKER BUTLER + + +I had not seen Perkins for six months or so and things were dull. I was +beginning to tire of sitting indolently in my office with nothing to do +but clip coupons from my bonds. Money is good enough, in its way, but it +is not interesting unless it is doing something lively--doubling itself +or getting lost. What I wanted was excitement--an adventure--and I knew +that if I could find Perkins I could have both. A scheme is a business +adventure, and Perkins was the greatest schemer in or out of Chicago. + +Just then Perkins walked into my office. + +"Perkins," I said, as soon as he had arranged his feet comfortably on my +desk, "I'm tired. I'm restless. I have been wishing for you for a month. +I want to go into a big scheme and make a lot of new, up-to-date cash. +I'm sick of this tame, old cash that I have. It isn't interesting. No +cash is interesting except the coming cash." + +"I'm with you," said Perkins, "what is your scheme?" + +"I have none," I said sadly, "that is just my trouble. I have sat here +for days trying to think of a good practical scheme, but I can't. I +don't believe there is an unworked scheme in the whole wide, wide +world." + +Perkins waved his hand. + +"My boy," he exclaimed, "there are millions! You've thousands of 'em +right here in your office! You're falling over them, sitting on them, +walking on them! Schemes? Everything is a scheme. Everything has money +in it!" + +I shrugged my shoulders. + +"Yes," I said, "for you. But you are a genius." + +"Genius, yes," Perkins said smiling cheerfully, "else why Perkins the +Great? Why Perkins the originator? Why the Great and Only Perkins of +Portland?" + +"All right," I said, "what I want is for your genius to get busy. I'll +give you a week to work up a good scheme." + +Perkins pushed back his hat and brought his feet to the floor with a +smack. + +"Why the delay?" he queried, "time is money. Hand me something from your +desk." + +I looked in my pigeonholes and pulled from one a small ball of string. +Perkins took it in his hand and looked at it with great admiration. + +"What is it?" he asked seriously. + +"That," I said humoring him, for I knew something great would be evolved +from his wonderful brain, "is a ball of red twine I bought at the +ten-cent store. I bought it last Saturday. It was sold to me by a +freckled young lady in a white shirtwaist. I paid--" + +"Stop!" Perkins cried, "what is it?" + +I looked at the ball of twine curiously. I tried to see something +remarkable in it. I couldn't. It remained a simple ball of red twine and +I told Perkins so. + +"The difference," declared Perkins, "between mediocrity and genius! +Mediocrity always sees red twine; genius sees a ball of Crimson Cord!" + +He leaned back in his chair and looked at me triumphantly. He folded his +arms as if he had settled the matter. His attitude seemed to say that he +had made a fortune for us. Suddenly he reached forward, and grasping my +scissors, began snipping off small lengths of the twine. + +"The Crimson Cord!" he ejaculated. "What does it suggest?" + +I told him that it suggested a parcel from the druggist's. I had often +seen just such twine about a druggist's parcel. + +Perkins sniffed disdainfully. + +"Druggists?" he exclaimed with disgust. "Mystery! Blood! 'The Crimson +Cord.' Daggers! Murder! Strangling! Clues! 'The Crimson Cord'--" + +He motioned wildly with his hands as if the possibilities of the phrase +were quite beyond his power of expression. + +"It sounds like a book," I suggested. + +"Great!" cried Perkins. "A novel! The novel! Think of the words 'A +Crimson Cord' in blood-red letters six feet high on a white ground!" He +pulled his hat over his eyes and spread out his hands, and I think he +shuddered. + +"Think of 'A Crimson Cord,'" he muttered, "in blood-red letters on a +ground of dead, sepulchral black, with a crimson cord writhing through +them like a serpent." + +He sat up suddenly and threw one hand in the air. + +"Think," he cried, "of the words in black on white with a crimson cord +drawn taut across the whole ad!" + +He beamed upon me. + +"The cover of the book," he said quite calmly, "will be white--virgin, +spotless white--with black lettering, and the cord in crimson. With each +copy we will give a crimson silk cord for a book-mark. Each copy will be +done up in a white box and tied with crimson cord." + +He closed his eyes and tilted his head upward. + +"A thick book," he said, "with deckel edges and pictures by Christy. +No, pictures by Pyle. Deep, mysterious pictures! Shadows and gloom! And +wide, wide margins. And a gloomy foreword. One fifty per copy, at all +booksellers." + +Perkins opened his eyes and set his hat straight with a quick motion of +his hand. He arose and pulled on his gloves. + +"Where are you going?" I asked. + +"Contracts!" he said. "Contracts for advertising! We must boom 'The +Crimson Cord.' We must boom her big!" + +He went out and closed the door. Presently, when I supposed him well on +the way down town, he opened the door and inserted his head. + +"Gilt tops," he announced. "One million copies the first impression!" + +And then he was gone. + + +II + +A week later Chicago and the greater part of the United States was +placarded with "The Crimson Cord." Perkins did his work thoroughly and +well, and great was the interest in the mysterious title. It was an old +dodge, but a good one. Nothing appeared on the advertisements but the +mere title. No word as to what "The Crimson Cord" was. Perkins merely +announced the words and left them to rankle in the reader's mind, and as +a natural consequence each new advertisement served to excite new +interest. + +When we made our contracts for magazine advertising--and we took a full +page in every worthy magazine--the publishers were at a loss to classify +the advertisement, and it sometimes appeared among the breakfast foods, +and sometimes sandwiched in between the automobiles and the hot water +heaters. Only one publication placed it among the books. + +But it was all good advertising, and Perkins was a busy man. He racked +his inventive brain for new methods of placing the title before the +public. In fact so busy was he at his labor of introducing the title +that he quite forgot the book itself. + +One day he came to the office with a small, rectangular package. He +unwrapped it in his customary enthusiastic manner, and set on my desk a +cigar box bound in the style he had selected for the binding of "The +Crimson Cord." It was then I spoke of the advisability of having +something to the book besides the cover and a boom. + +"Perkins," I said, "don't you think it is about time we got hold of the +novel--the reading, the words?" + +For a moment he seemed stunned. It was clear that he had quite forgotten +that book-buyers like to have a little reading matter in their books. +But he was only dismayed for a moment. + +"Tut!" he cried presently. "All in good time! The novel is easy. +Anything will do. I'm no literary man. I don't read a book in a year. +You get the novel." + +"But I don't read a book in five years!" I exclaimed. "I don't know +anything about books. I don't know where to get a novel." + +"Advertise!" he exclaimed. "Advertise! You can get anything, from an +apron to an ancestor, if you advertise for it. Offer a prize--offer a +thousand dollars for the best novel. There must be thousands of novels +not in use." + +Perkins was right. I advertised as he suggested and learned that there +were thousands of novels not in use. They came to us by basketfuls and +cartloads. We had novels of all kinds--historical and hysterical, +humorous and numerous, but particularly numerous. You would be +surprised to learn how many ready-made novels can be had on short +notice. It beats quick lunch. And most of them are equally indigestible. +I read one or two but I was no judge of novels. Perkins suggested that +we draw lots to see which we should use. + +It really made little difference what the story was about. "The Crimson +Cord" fits almost any kind of a book. It is a nice, non-committal sort +of title, and might mean the guilt that bound two sinners, or the tie of +affection that binds lovers, or a blood relationship, or it might be a +mystification title with nothing in the book about it. + +But the choice settled itself. One morning a manuscript arrived that was +tied with a piece of red twine, and we chose that one for good luck +because of the twine. Perkins said that was a sufficient excuse for the +title, too. We would publish the book anonymously, and let it be known +that the only clue to the writer was the crimson cord with which the +manuscript was tied when we received it. It would be a first-class +advertisement. + +Perkins, however, was not much interested in the story, and he left me +to settle the details. I wrote to the author asking him to call, and he +turned out to be a young woman. + +Our interview was rather shy. I was a little doubtful about the proper +way to talk to a real author, being purely a Chicagoan myself, and I had +an idea that while my usual vocabulary was good enough for business +purposes it might be too easy-going to impress a literary person +properly, and in trying to talk up to her standard I had to be very +careful in my choice of words. No publisher likes to have his authors +think he is weak in the grammar line. + +Miss Rosa Belle Vincent, however, was quite as flustered as I was. She +seemed ill-at-ease and anxious to get away, which I supposed was because +she had not often conversed with publishers who paid a thousand dollars +cash in advance for a manuscript. + +She was not at all what I had thought an author would look like. She +didn't even wear glasses. If I had met her on the street I should have +said: "There goes a pretty flip stenographer." She was that kind--big +picture hat and high pompadour. + +I was afraid she would try to run the talk into literary lines and Ibsen +and Gorky, where I would have been swamped in a minute, but she didn't, +and, although I had wondered how to break the subject of money when +conversing with one who must be thinking of nobler things, I found she +was less shy when on that subject than when talking about her book. + +"Well now," I said, as soon as I had got her seated, "we have decided to +buy this novel of yours. Can you recommend it as a thoroughly +respectable and intellectual production?" + +She said she could. + +"Haven't you read it?" she asked in some surprise. + +"No," I stammered. "At least, not yet. I'm going to as soon as I can +find the requisite leisure. You see, we are very busy just now--very +busy. But if you can vouch for the story being a first-class +article--something, say, like 'The Vicar of Wakefield' or 'David +Harum'--we'll take it." + +"Now you're talking," she said. "And do I get the check now?" + +"Wait," I said; "not so fast. I have forgotten one thing," and I saw her +face fall. "We want the privilege of publishing the novel under a title +of our own, and anonymously. If that is not satisfactory the deal is +off." + +She brightened in a moment. + +"It's a go, if that's all," she said. "Call it whatever you please, and +the more anonymous it is the better it will suit yours truly." + +So we settled the matter then and there, and when I gave her our check +for a thousand she said I was all right. + + +III + +Half an hour after Miss Vincent had left the office Perkins came in with +his arms full of bundles, which he opened, spreading their contents on +my desk. + +He had a pair of suspenders with nickel-silver mountings, a tie, a +lady's belt, a pair of low shoes, a shirt, a box of cigars, a package of +cookies, and a half-dozen other things of divers and miscellaneous +character. I poked them over and examined them, while he leaned against +the desk with his legs crossed. He was beaming upon me. + +"Well," I said, "what is it--a bargain sale?" + +Perkins leaned over and tapped the pile with his long fore-finger. + +"Aftermath!" he crowed, "aftermath!" + +"The dickens it is," I exclaimed, "and what has aftermath got to do with +this truck? It looks like the aftermath of a notion store." + +He tipped his "Air-the-Hair" hat over one ear and put his thumbs in the +armholes of his "ready-tailored" vest. + +"Genius!" he announced. "Brains! Foresight! Else why Perkins the Great? +Why not Perkins the Nobody?" + +He raised the suspenders tenderly from the pile and fondled them in his +hands. + +"See this?" he asked, running his finger along the red corded edge of +the elastic. He took up the tie and ran his nail along the red stripe +that formed the selvedge on the back, and said: "See this?" He pointed +to the red laces of the low shoes and asked, "See this?" And so through +the whole collection. + +"What is it?" he asked. "It's genius! It's foresight." + +He waved his hand over the pile. + +"The aftermath!" he exclaimed. + +"These suspenders are the Crimson Cord suspenders. These shoes are the +Crimson Cord shoes. This tie is the Crimson Cord tie. These crackers are +the Crimson Cord brand. Perkins & Co. get out a great book, 'The Crimson +Cord!' Sell five million copies. Dramatized, it runs three hundred +nights. Everybody talking Crimson Cord. Country goes Crimson Cord crazy. +Result--up jump Crimson Cord this and Crimson Cord that. Who gets the +benefit? Perkins & Co.? No! We pay the advertising bills and the other +man sells his Crimson Cord cigars. That is usual." + +"Yes," I said, "I'm smoking a David Harum cigar this minute, and I am +wearing a Carvel collar." + +"How prevent it?" asked Perkins. "One way only,--discovered by Perkins. +Copyright the words 'Crimson Cord' as trade-mark for every possible +thing. Sell the trade-mark on royalty; ten per cent. of all receipts for +'Crimson Cord' brands comes to Perkins & Co. Get a cinch on the +aftermath!" + +"Perkins!" I cried, "I admire you. You _are_ a genius. And have you +contracts with all these--notions?" + +"Yes," said Perkins, "that's Perkins' method. Who originated the Crimson +Cord? Perkins did. Who is entitled to the profits on the Crimson Cord? +Perkins is. Perkins is wide awake _all_ the time. Perkins gets a profit +on the aftermath and the math and the before the math." + +And so he did. He made his new contracts with the magazines on the +exchange plan--we gave a page of advertising in the "Crimson Cord" for +a page of advertising in the magazine. We guaranteed five million +circulation. We arranged with all the manufacturers of the Crimson Cord +brands of goods to give coupons, one hundred of which entitled the +holder to a copy of "The Crimson Cord." With a pair of Crimson Cord +suspenders you get five coupons; with each Crimson Cord cigar, one +coupon; and so on. + + +IV + +On the first of October we announced in our advertisement that "The +Crimson Cord" was a book; the greatest novel of the century; a +thrilling, exciting tale of love. Miss Vincent had told me it was a love +story. Just to make everything sure, however, I sent the manuscript to +Professor Wiggins, who is the most erudite man I ever met. He knows +eighteen languages, and reads Egyptian as easily as I read English. In +fact his specialty is old Egyptian ruins and so on. He has written +several books on them. + +Professor said the novel seemed to him very light and trashy, but +grammatically O.K. He said he never read novels, not having time, but he +thought that "The Crimson Cord" was just about the sort of thing a silly +public that refused to buy his "Some Light on the Dynastic Proclivities +of the Hyksos" would scramble for. On the whole I considered the report +satisfactory. + +We found we would be unable to have Pyle illustrate the book, he being +too busy, so we turned it over to a young man at the Art Institute. + +That was the fifteenth of October, and we had promised the book to the +public for the first of November, but we had it already in type and the +young man, his name was Gilkowsky, promised to work night and day on +the illustrations. + +The next morning, almost as soon as I reached the office, Gilkowsky came +in. He seemed a little hesitant, but I welcomed him warmly, and he spoke +up. + +"I have a girl to go with," he said, and I wondered what I had to do +with Mr. Gilkowsky's girl, but he continued: + +"She's a nice girl and a good looker, but she's got bad taste in some +things. She's too loud in hats, and too trashy in literature. I don't +like to say this about her, but it's true and I'm trying to educate her +in good hats and good literature. So I thought it would be a good thing +to take around this 'Crimson Cord' and let her read it to me." + +I nodded. + +"Did she like it?" I asked. + +Mr. Gilkowsky looked at me closely. + +"She did," he said, but not so enthusiastically as I had expected. + +"It's her favorite book. Now, I don't know what your scheme is, and I +suppose you know what you are doing better than I do; but I thought +perhaps I had better come around before I got to work on the +illustrations and see if perhaps you hadn't given me the wrong +manuscript." + +"No, that was the right manuscript," I said. "Was there anything wrong +about it?" + +Mr. Gilkowsky laughed nervously. + +"Oh, no!" he said. "But did you read it?" + +I told him I had not because I had been so rushed with details connected +with advertising the book. + +"Well," he said, "I'll tell you. This girl of mine reads pretty trashy +stuff, and she knows about all the cheap novels there are. She dotes on +'The Duchess,' and puts her last dime into Braddon. She knows them all +by heart. Have you ever read 'Lady Audley's Secret'?" + +"I see," I said. "One is a sequel to the other." + +"No," said Mr. Gilkowsky. "One is the other. Some one has flim-flammed +you and sold you a typewritten copy of 'Lady Audley's Secret' as a new +novel." + + +V + +When I told Perkins he merely remarked that he thought every publishing +house ought to have some one in it who knew something about books, apart +from the advertising end, although that was, of course, the most +important. He said we might go ahead and publish "Lady Audley's Secret" +under the title of "The Crimson Cord," as such things had been done +before, but the best thing to do would be to charge Rosa Belle Vincent's +thousand dollars to Profit and Loss and hustle for another +novel--something reliable and not shop-worn. + +Perkins had been studying the literature market a little and he advised +me to get something from Indiana this time, so I telegraphed an +advertisement to the Indianapolis papers and two days later we had +ninety-eight historical novels by Indiana authors from which to choose. +Several were of the right length, and we chose one and sent it to Mr. +Gilkowsky with a request that he read it to his sweetheart. She had +never read it before. + +We sent a detective to Dillville, Indiana, where the author lived, and +the report we received was most satisfactory. + +The author was a sober, industrious young man, just out of the high +school, and bore a first-class reputation for honesty. He had never been +in Virginia, where the scene of his story was laid, and they had no +library in Dillville, and our detective assured us that the young man +was in every way fitted to write a historical novel. + +"The Crimson Cord" made an immense success. You can guess how it boomed +when I say that although it was published at a dollar and a half, it was +sold by every department store for fifty-four cents, away below cost, +just like sugar, or Vandeventer's Baby Food, or Q & Z Corsets, or any +other staple. We sold our first edition of five million copies inside of +three months, and got out another edition of two million, and a +specially illustrated holiday edition and an _edition de luxe_, and "The +Crimson Cord" is still selling in paper-covered cheap edition. + +With the royalties received from the aftermath and the profit on the +book itself, we made--well, Perkins has a country place at Lakewood, and +I have my cottage at Newport. + +[Footnote 1: Copyright, 1904, by Leslie's Magazine.] + + + + +THE RHYME OF THE CHIVALROUS SHARK[2] + +BY WALLACE IRWIN + + + Most chivalrous fish of the ocean, + To ladies forbearing and mild, + Though his record be dark, is the man-eating shark + Who will eat neither woman nor child. + + He dines upon seamen and skippers, + And tourists his hunger assuage, + And a fresh cabin boy will inspire him with joy + If he's past the maturity age. + + A doctor, a lawyer, a preacher, + He'll gobble one any fine day, + But the ladies, God bless 'em, he'll only address 'em + Politely and go on his way. + + I can readily cite you an instance + Where a lovely young lady of Breem, + Who was tender and sweet and delicious to eat, + Fell into the bay with a scream. + + She struggled and flounced in the water + And signaled in vain for her bark, + And she'd surely been drowned if she hadn't been found + By a chivalrous man-eating shark. + + He bowed in a manner most polished, + Thus soothing her impulses wild; + "Don't be frightened," he said, "I've been properly bred + And will eat neither woman nor child." + + Then he proffered his fin and she took it-- + Such a gallantry none can dispute-- + While the passengers cheered as the vessel they neared + And a broadside was fired in salute. + + And they soon stood alongside the vessel, + When a life-saving dingey was lowered + With the pick of the crew, and her relatives, too, + And the mate and the skipper aboard. + + So they took her aboard in a jiffy, + And the shark stood attention the while, + Then he raised on his flipper and ate up the skipper + And went on his way with a smile. + + And this shows that the prince of the ocean, + To ladies forbearing and mild, + Though his record be dark, is the man-eating shark + Who will eat neither woman nor child. + +[Footnote 2: From "Nautical Lays of a Landsman," by Wallace Irwin. +Copyright, 1904, by Dodd, Mead & Co.] + + + + +THE PLAINT OF JONAH + +BY ROBERT J. BURDETTE + + + Why should I live, when every day + The wicked prospers in his way, + And daily adds unto his hoard, + While cutworms smite the good man's gourd? + + When I would rest beneath its shade + Comes the shrill-voiced book-selling maid, + And smites me with her tireless breath-- + Then am I angry unto death. + + When I would slumber in my booth, + Who comes with accents loud and smooth, + And talks from dawn to midnight late? + The honest labor candidate. + + Who pounds mine ear with noisy talk, + Whose brazen gall no ire can balk + And wearies me of life's short span? + The accident insurance man. + + And when, all other torments flown, + I think to call one hour mine own, + Who takes my leisure by the throat? + The villain taking up a vote. + + + + +A DOS'T O' BLUES + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + I' got no patience with blues at all! + And I ust to kindo talk + Aginst 'em, and claim, 'tel along last Fall, + They was none in the fambly stock; + But a nephew of mine, from Eelinoy, + That visited us last year, + He kindo convinct me differunt + While he was a-stayin' here. + + Frum ever'-which way that blues is from, + They'd tackle him ever' ways; + They'd come to him in the night, and come + On Sundays, and rainy days; + They'd tackle him in corn-plantin' time, + And in harvest, and airly Fall, + But a dose't of blues in the wintertime, + He 'lowed, was the worst of all! + + Said all diseases that ever he had-- + The mumps, er the rheumatiz-- + Er ever'-other-day-aigger's bad + Purt' nigh as anything is!-- + Er a cyarbuncle, say, on the back of his neck, + Er a felon on his thumb,-- + But you keep the blues away from him, + And all o' the rest could come! + + And he'd moan, "They's nary a leaf below! + Ner a spear o' grass in sight! + And the whole wood-pile's clean under snow! + And the days is dark as night! + You can't go out--ner you can't stay in-- + Lay down--stand up--ner set!" + And a tetch o' regular tyfoid-blues + Would double him jest clean shet! + + I writ his parents a postal-kyard, + He could stay 'tel Spring-time come; + And Aprile first, as I rickollect, + Was the day we shipped him home! + Most o' his relatives, sence then, + Has either give up, er quit, + Er jest died off; but I understand + He's the same old color yit! + + + + +MORRIS AND THE HONORABLE TIM[3] + +BY MYRA KELLY + + +On the first day of school, after the Christmas holidays, teacher found +herself surrounded by a howling mob of little savages in which she had +much difficulty in recognizing her cherished First-Reader Class. Isidore +Belchatosky's face was so wreathed in smiles and foreign matter as to be +beyond identification; Nathan Spiderwitz had placed all his trust in a +solitary suspender and two unstable buttons; Eva Kidansky had entirely +freed herself from restraining hooks and eyes; Isidore Applebaum had +discarded shoe-laces; and Abie Ashnewsky had bartered his only necktie +for a yard of "shoe-string" licorice. + +Miss Bailey was greatly disheartened by this reversion to the original +type. She delivered daily lectures on nail-brushes, hair-ribbons, shoe +polish, pins, buttons, elastic, and other means to grace. Her talks on +soap and water became almost personal in tone, and her insistence on a +close union between such garments as were meant to be united, led to a +lively traffic in twisted and disreputable safety-pins. And yet the +First-Reader Class, in all other branches of learning so receptive and +responsive, made but halting and uncertain progress toward that state of +virtue which is next to godliness. + +Early in January came the report that "Gum Shoe Tim" was on the +war-path and might be expected at any time. Miss Bailey heard the +tidings in calm ignorance until Miss Blake, who ruled over the adjoining +kingdom, interpreted the warning. A license to teach in the public +schools of New York is good for only one year. Its renewal depends upon +the reports of the Principal in charge of the school and of the +Associate Superintendent in whose district the school chances to be. +After three such renewals the license becomes permanent, but Miss Bailey +was, as a teacher, barely four months old. The Associate Superintendent +for her vicinity was the Honorable Timothy O'Shea, known and dreaded as +"Gum Shoe Tim," owing to his engaging way of creeping softly up +back-stairs and appearing, all unheralded and unwelcome, upon the +threshold of his intended victim. + +This, Miss Blake explained, was in defiance of all the rules of +etiquette governing such visits of inspection. The proper procedure had +been that of Mr. O'Shea's predecessor, who had always given timely +notice of his coming and a hint as to the subjects in which he intended +to examine the children. Some days later he would amble from room to +room, accompanied by the amiable Principal, and followed by the +gratitude of smiling and unruffled teachers. + +This kind old gentleman was now retired and had been succeeded by Mr. +O'Shea, who, in addition to his unexpectedness, was adorned by an +abominable temper, an overbearing manner, and a sense of cruel humor. He +had almost finished his examinations at the nearest school where, during +a brisk campaign of eight days, he had caused five dismissals, nine +cases of nervous exhaustion, and an epidemic of hysteria. + +Day by day nerves grew more tense, tempers more unsure, sleep and +appetite more fugitive. Experienced teachers went stolidly on with the +ordinary routine, while beginners devoted time and energy to the more +spectacular portions of the curriculum. But no one knew the Honorable +Timothy's pet subjects, and so no one could specialize to any great +extent. + +Miss Bailey was one of the beginners, and Room 18 was made to shine as +the sun. Morris Mogilewsky, Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl, wrought +busily until his charges glowed redly against the water plants in their +shining bowl. Creepers crept, plants grew, and ferns waved under the +care of Nathan Spiderwitz, Monitor of the Window Boxes. There was such a +martial swing and strut in Patrick Brennan's leadership of the line that +it inflamed even the timid heart of Isidore Wishnewsky with a war-like +glow and his feet with a spasmodic but well-meant tramp. Sadie +Gonorowsky and Eva, her cousin, sat closely side by side, no longer "mad +on theirselves," but "mit kind feelings." The work of the preceding term +was laid in neat and docketed piles upon the low book-case. The children +were enjoined to keep clean and entire. And Teacher, a nervous and +unsmiling Teacher, waited dully. + +A week passed thus, and then the good-hearted and experienced Miss Blake +hurried ponderously across the hall to put Teacher on her guard. + +"I've just had a note from one of the grammar teachers," she panted. +"'Gum Shoe Tim' is up in Miss Green's room! He'll take this floor next. +Now, see here, child, don't look so frightened. The Principal is with +Tim. Of course you're nervous, but try not to show it, and you'll be all +right. His lay is discipline and reading. Well, good luck to you!" + +Miss Bailey took heart of grace. The children read surprisingly well, +were absolutely good, and the enemy under convoy of the friendly +Principal would be much less terrifying than the enemy at large and +alone. It was, therefore, with a manner almost serene that she turned to +greet the kindly concerned Principal and the dreaded "Gum Shoe Tim." The +latter she found less ominous of aspect than she had been led to fear, +and the Principal's charming little speech of introduction made her +flush with quick pleasure. And the anxious eyes of Sadie Gonorowsky, +noting the flush, grew calm as Sadie whispered to Eva, her close cousin: + +"Say, Teacher has a glad. She's red on the face. It could to be her +papa." + +"No. It's comp'ny," answered Eva sagely. "It ain't her papa. It's +comp'ny the whiles Teacher takes him by the hand." + +The children were not in the least disconcerted by the presence of the +large man. They always enjoyed visitors, and they liked the heavy gold +chain which festooned the wide waistcoat of this guest; and, as they +watched him, the Associate Superintendent began to superintend. + +He looked at the children all in their clean and smiling rows; he looked +at the flowers and the gold-fish; at the pictures and the plaster casts; +he looked at the work of the last term and he looked at Teacher. As he +looked he swayed gently on his rubber heels and decided that he was +going to enjoy the coming quarter of an hour. Teacher pleased him from +the first. She was neither old nor ill-favored, and she was most +evidently nervous. The combination appealed both to his love of power +and his peculiar sense of humor. Settling deliberately in the chair of +state, he began: + +"Can the children sing, Miss Bailey?" + +They could sing very prettily and they did. + +"Very nice, indeed," said the voice of visiting authority. "Very nice. +Their music is exceptionally good. And are they drilled? Children, will +you march for me?" + +Again they could and did. Patrick marshaled his line in time and triumph +up and down the aisles to the evident interest and approval of the +"comp'ny," and then Teacher led the class through some very energetic +Swedish movements. While arms and bodies were bending and straightening +at Teacher's command and example, the door opened and a breathless boy +rushed in. He bore an unfolded note and, as Teacher had no hand to +spare, the boy placed the paper on the desk under the softening eyes of +the Honorable Timothy, who glanced down idly and then pounced upon the +note and read its every word. + +"For you, Miss Bailey," he said in the voice before which even the +school janitor had been known to quail. "Your friend was thoughtful, +though a little late." And poor palpitating Miss Bailey read: + +"Watch out! 'Gum Shoe Tim' is in the building. The Principal caught him +on the back-stairs, and they're going round together. He's as cross as a +bear. Greene in dead faint in the dressing-room. Says he's going to fire +her. Watch out for him, and send the news on. His lay is reading and +discipline." + +Miss Bailey grew cold with sick and unreasoning fear. As she gazed +wide-eyed at the living confirmation of the statement that "Gum Shoe +Tim" was "as cross as a bear," the gentle-hearted Principal took the +paper from her nerveless grasp. + +"It's all right," he assured her. "Mr. O'Shea understands that you had +no part in this. It's all right. You are not responsible." + +But Teacher had no ears for his soothing. She could only watch with +fascinated eyes as the Honorable Timothy reclaimed the note and wrote +across it's damning face: "Miss Greene may come to. She is not +fired.--T. O'S." + +"Here, boy," he called; "take this to your teacher." The puzzled +messenger turned to obey, and the Associate Superintendent saw that +though his dignity had suffered his power had increased. To the list of +those whom he might, if so disposed, devour, he had now added the name +of the Principal, who was quick to understand that an unpleasant +investigation lay before him. If Miss Bailey could not be held +responsible for this system of inter-classroom communication, it was +clear that the Principal could. + +Every trace of interest had left Mr. O'Shea's voice as he asked: + +"Can they read?" + +"Oh, yes, they read," responded Teacher, but her spirit was crushed and +the children reflected her depression. Still, they were marvelously good +and that blundering note had said, "Discipline is his lay." Well, here +he had it. + +There was one spectator of this drama, who, understanding no word nor +incident therein, yet dismissed no shade of the many emotions which had +stirred the light face of his lady. Toward the front of the room sat +Morris Mogilewsky, with every nerve tuned to Teacher's, and with an +appreciation of the situation in which the other children had no share. +On the afternoon of one of those dreary days of waiting for the evil +which had now come, Teacher had endeavored to explain the nature and +possible result of this ordeal to her favorite. It was clear to him now +that she was troubled, and he held the large and unaccustomed presence +of the "comp'ny mit whiskers" responsible. Countless generations of +ancestors had followed and fostered the instinct which now led Morris to +propitiate an angry power. Luckily, he was prepared with an offering of +a suitable nature. He had meant to enjoy it for yet a few days, and then +to give it to Teacher. She was such a sensible person about presents. +One might give her one's most cherished possession with a brave and +cordial heart, for on each Friday afternoon she returned the gifts she +had received during the week. And this with no abatement of gratitude. + +Morris rose stealthily, crept forward, and placed a bright blue +bromo-seltzer bottle in the fat hand which hung over the back of the +chair of state. The hand closed instinctively as, with dawning +curiosity, the Honorable Timothy studied the small figure at his side. +It began in a wealth of loosely curling hair which shaded a delicate +face, very pointed as to chin and monopolized by a pair of dark eyes, +sad and deep and beautiful. A faded blue "jumper" was buttoned tightly +across the narrow chest; frayed trousers were precariously attached to +the "jumper," and impossible shoes and stockings supplemented the +trousers. Glancing from boy to bottle, the "comp'ny mit whiskers" asked: + +"What's this for?" + +"For you." + +"What's in it?" + +"A present." + +Mr. O'Shea removed the cork and proceeded to draw out incredible +quantities of absorbent cotton. When there was no more to come, a faint +tinkle sounded within the blue depths, and Mr. O'Shea, reversing the +bottle, found himself possessed of a trampled and disfigured sleeve link +of most palpable brass. + +"It's from gold," Morris assured him. "You puts it in your--'scuse +me--shirt. Wish you health to wear it." + +"Thank you," said the Honorable Tim, and there was a tiny break in the +gloom which had enveloped him. And then, with a quick memory of the +note and of his anger: + +"Miss Bailey, who is this young man?" + +And Teacher, of whose hobbies Morris was one, answered warmly: "That is +Morris Mogilewsky, the best of boys. He takes care of the gold-fish, and +does all sorts of things for me. Don't you, dear?" + +"Teacher, yiss ma'an," Morris answered. "I'm lovin' much mit you. I +gives presents on the comp'ny over you." + +"Ain't he rather big to speak such broken English?" asked Mr. O'Shea. "I +hope you remember that it is part of your duty to stamp out the +dialect." + +"Yes, I know," Miss Bailey answered. "But Morris has been in America for +so short a time. Nine months, is it not?" + +"Teacher, yiss ma'an. I comes out of Russia," responded Morris, on the +verge of tears and with his face buried in Teacher's dress. + +Now Mr. O'Shea had his prejudices--strong and deep. He had been given +jurisdiction over that particular district because it was his native +heath, and the Board of Education considered that he would be more in +sympathy with the inhabitants than a stranger. The truth was absolutely +the reverse. Because he had spent his early years in a large old house +on East Broadway, because he now saw his birthplace changed to a squalid +tenement, and the happy hunting grounds of his youth grown ragged and +foreign--swarming with strange faces and noisy with strange tongues--Mr. +O'Shea bore a sullen grudge against the usurping race. + +He resented the caressing air with which Teacher held the little hand +placed so confidently within her own and he welcomed the opportunity of +gratifying his still ruffled temper and his racial antagonism at the +same time. He would take a rise out of this young woman about her +little Jew. She would be comforted later on. Mr. O'Shea rather fancied +himself in the role of comforter, when the sufferer was neither old nor +ill-favored. And so he set about creating the distress which he would +later change to gratitude and joy. Assuredly the Honorable Timothy had a +well-developed sense of humor. + +"His English is certainly dreadful," remarked the voice of authority, +and it was not an English voice, nor is O'Shea distinctively an English +name. "Dreadful. And, by the way, I hope you are not spoiling these +youngsters. You must remember that you are fitting them for the battle +of life. Don't coddle your soldiers. Can you reconcile your present +attitude with discipline?" + +"With Morris--yes," Teacher answered. "He is gentle and tractable beyond +words." + +"Well, I hope you're right," grunted Mr. O'Shea, "but don't coddle +them." + +And so the incident closed. The sleeve link was tucked, before Morris's +yearning eyes, into the reluctant pocket of the wide white waistcoat, +and Morris returned to his place. He found his reader and the proper +page, and the lesson went on with brisk serenity; real on the children's +part, but bravely assumed on Teacher's. Child after child stood up, +read, sat down again, and it came to be the duty of Bertha Binderwitz to +read the entire page of which the others had each read a line. She began +jubilantly, but soon stumbled, hesitated, and wailed: + +"Stands a fierce word. I don't know what it is," and Teacher turned to +write the puzzling word upon the blackboard. + +Morris's heart stopped with a sickening suddenness and then rushed madly +on again. He had a new and dreadful duty to perform. All his mother's +counsel, all his father's precepts told him that it was his duty. Yet +fear held him in his little seat behind his little desk, while his +conscience insisted on this unalterable decree of the social code: "So +somebody's clothes is wrong it's polite you says ''scuse' and tells it +out." + +And here was Teacher whom he dearly loved, whose ideals of personal +adornment extended to full sets of buttons on jumpers and to laces in +both shoes, here was his immaculate lady fair in urgent need of +assistance and advice, and all because she had on that day inaugurated a +delightfully vigorous exercise for which, architecturally, she was not +designed. + +There was yet room for hope that some one else would see the breach and +brave the danger. But no. The visitor sat stolidly in the chair of +state, the Principal sat serenely beside him, the children sat each in +his own little place, behind his own little desk, keeping his own little +eyes on his own little book. No. Morris's soul cried with Hamlet's: + + "The time is out of joint;--O cursed spite, + That ever I was born to set it right!" + +Up into the quiet air went his timid hand. Teacher, knowing him in his +more garrulous moods, ignored the threatened interruption of Bertha's +spirited resume, but the windmill action of the little arm attracted the +Honorable Tim's attention. + +"The best of boys wants you," he suggested, and Teacher perforce asked: + +"Well, Morris, what is it?" + +Not until he was on his feet did the Monitor of the Gold-Fish Bowl +appreciate the enormity of the mission he had undertaken. The other +children began to understand, and watched his struggle for words and +breath with sympathy or derision, as their natures prompted. But there +are no words in which one may politely mention ineffective safety-pins +to one's glass of fashion. Morris's knees trembled queerly, his +breathing grew difficult, and Teacher seemed a very great way off as she +asked again: + +"Well, what is it, dear?" + +Morris panted a little, smiled weakly, and then sat down. Teacher was +evidently puzzled, the "comp'ny" alert, the Principal uneasy. + +"Now, Morris," Teacher remonstrated, "you must tell me what you want." + +But Morris had deserted his etiquette and his veracity, and murmured +only: + +"Nothings." + +"Just wanted to be noticed," said the Honorable Tim. "It is easy to +spoil them." And he watched the best of boys rather closely, for a habit +of interrupting reading lessons, wantonly and without reason, was a +trait in the young of which he disapproved. + +When this disapprobation manifested itself in Mr. O'Shea's countenance, +the loyal heart of Morris interpreted it as a new menace to his +sovereign. No later than yesterday she had warned them of the vital +importance of coherence. "Every one knows," she had said, "that only +common little boys and girls come apart. No one ever likes them," and +the big stranger was even now misjudging her. + +Again his short arm agitated the quiet air. Again his trembling legs +upheld a trembling boy. Again authority urged. Again Teacher asked: + +"Well, Morris, what is it, dear?" + +All this was as before, but not as before was poor harassed Miss +Bailey's swoop down the aisle, her sudden taking Morris's troubled +little face between her soft hands, the quick near meeting with her +kind eyes, the note of pleading in her repetition: + +"What do you want, Morris?" + +He was beginning to answer when it occurred to him that the truth might +make her cry. There was an unsteadiness about her upper lip which seemed +to indicate the possibility. Suddenly he found that he no longer yearned +for words in which to tell her of her disjointment, but for something +else--anything else--to say. + +His miserable eyes escaped from hers and wandered to the wall in +desperate search for conversation. There was no help in the pictures, no +inspiration in the plaster casts, but on the blackboard he read, +"Tuesday, January twenty-first, 1902." Only the date, but he must make +it serve. With teacher close beside him, with the hostile eye of the +Honorable Tim upon him, hedged round about by the frightened or admiring +regard of the First-Reader Class, Morris blinked rapidly, swallowed +resolutely, and remarked: + +"Teacher, this year's Nineteen-hundred-and-two," and knew that all was +over. + +The caressing clasp of Teacher's hands grew into a grip of anger. The +countenance of Mr. O'Shea took on the beautiful expression of the +prophet who has found honor and verification in his own country. + +"The best of boys has his off days and this is one of them," he +remarked. + +"Morris," said Teacher, "did you stop a reading lesson to tell me that? +Do you think I don't know what the year is? I'm ashamed of you." + +Never had she spoken thus. If the telling had been difficult to Morris +when she was "glad on him," it was impossible now that she was a prey to +such evident "mad feelings." And yet he must make some explanation. So +he murmured: "Teacher, I tells you 'scuse. I know you knows what year +stands, on'y it's polite I tells you something, und I had a fraid." + +"And so you bothered your Teacher with that nonsense," said Tim. "You're +a nice boy!" + +Morris's eyes were hardly more appealing than Teacher's as the two +culprits, for so they felt themselves, turned to their judge. + +"Morris is a strange boy," Miss Bailey explained. "He can't be managed +by ordinary methods--" + +"And extraordinary methods don't seem to work to-day," Mr. O'Shea +interjected. + +"And I think," Teacher continued, "that it might be better not to press +the point." + +"Oh, if you have no control over him--" Mr. O'Shea was beginning +pleasantly, when the Principal suggested: + +"You'd better let us hear what he has to say, Miss Bailey; make him +understand that you are master here." And Teacher, with a heart-sick +laugh at the irony of this advice in the presence of the Associate +Superintendent, turned to obey. + +But Morris would utter no words but these, dozens of times repeated: "I +have a fraid." Miss Bailey coaxed, bribed, threatened and cajoled; shook +him surreptitiously, petted him openly. The result was always the same: +"It's polite I tells you something out, on'y I had a fraid." + +"But, Morris, dear, of what?" cried Teacher. "Are you afraid of me? Stop +crying now and answer. Are you afraid of Miss Bailey?" + +"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an." + +"Are you afraid of the Principal?" + +"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an." + +"Are you afraid,"--with a slight pause, during which a native hue of +honesty was foully done to death--"of the kind gentleman we are all so +glad to see?" + +"N-o-o-oh m-a-a-an." + +"Well, then what is the matter with you? Are you sick? Don't you think +you would like to go home to your mother?" + +"No-o-o-oh m-a-a-an; I ain't sick. I tells you 'scuse." + +The repeated imitation of a sorrowful goat was too much for the +Honorable Tim. + +"Bring that boy to me," he commanded. "I'll show you how to manage +refractory and rebellious children." + +With much difficulty and many assurances that the gentleman was not +going to hurt him, Miss Bailey succeeded in untwining Morris's legs from +the supports of the desk and in half carrying, half leading him up to +the chair of state. An ominous silence had settled over the room. Eva +Gonorowsky was weeping softly, and the redoubtable Isidore Applebaum was +stiffened in a frozen calm. + +"Morris," began the Associate Superintendent in his most awful tones, +"will you tell me why you raised your hand? Come here, sir." + +Teacher urged him gently, and like dog to heel, he went. He halted +within a pace or two of Mr. O'Shea, and lifted a beseeching face toward +him. + +"I couldn't to tell nothing out," said he. "I tells you 'scuse. I'm got +a fraid." + +The Honorable Tim lunged quickly and caught the terrified boy +preparatory to shaking him, but Morris escaped and fled to his haven of +safety--his Teacher's arms. When Miss Bailey felt the quick clasp of the +thin little hands, the heavy beating of the over-tired heart, and the +deep convulsive sobs, she turned on the Honorable Timothy O'Shea and +spoke: + +"I must ask you to leave this room at once," she announced. The +Principal started and then sat back. Teacher's eyes were dangerous, and +the Honorable Tim might profit by a lesson. "You've frightened the child +until he can't breathe. I can do nothing with him while you remain. The +examination is ended. You may go." + +Now Mr. O'Shea saw he had gone a little too far in his effort to create +the proper dramatic setting for his clemency. He had not expected the +young woman to "rise" quite so far and high. His deprecating +half-apology, half-eulogy, gave Morris the opportunity he craved. + +"Teacher," he panted; "I wants to whisper mit you in the ear." + +With a dexterous movement he knelt upon her lap and tore out his +solitary safety-pin. He then clasped her tightly and made his +explanation. He began in the softest of whispers, which increased in +volume as it did in interest, so that he reached the climax at the full +power of his boy soprano voice. + +"Teacher, Missis Bailey, I know you know what year stands. On'y it's +polite I tells you something, und I had a fraid the while the 'comp'ny +mit the whiskers' sets und rubbers. But, Teacher, it's like this: your +jumper's sticking out und you could to take mine safety-pin." + +He had understood so little of all that had passed that he was beyond +being surprised by the result of this communication. Miss Bailey had +gathered him into her arms and had cried in a queer helpless way. And as +she cried she had said over and over again: "Morris, how could you? Oh, +how could you, dear? How could you?" + +The Principal and "the comp'ny mit whiskers" looked solemnly at one +another for a struggling moment, and had then broken into laughter, long +and loud, until the visiting authority was limp and moist. The children +waited in polite uncertainty, but when Miss Bailey, after some +indecision, had contributed a wan smile, which later grew into a shaky +laugh, the First-Reader Class went wild. + +Then the Honorable Timothy arose to say good-by. He reiterated his +praise of the singing and reading, the blackboard work and the moral +tone. An awkward pause ensued, during which the Principal engaged the +young Gonorowskys in impromptu conversation. The Honorable Tim crossed +over to Miss Bailey's side and steadied himself for a great effort. + +"Teacher," he began meekly, "I tells you 'scuse. This sort of thing +makes a man feel like a bull in a china shop. Do you think the little +fellow will shake hands with me? I was really only joking." + +"But surely he will," said Miss Bailey, as she glanced down at the +tangle of dark curls resting against her breast. "Morris, dear, aren't +you going to say good-by to the gentleman?" + +Morris relaxed one hand from its grasp on his lady and bestowed it on +Mr. O'Shea. + +"Good-by," said he gently. "I gives you presents, from gold presents, +the while you're friends mit Teacher. I'm loving much mit her, too." + +At this moment the Principal turned, and Mr. O'Shea, in a desperate +attempt to retrieve his dignity, began: "As to class management and +discipline--" + +But the Principal was not to be deceived. + +"Don't you think, Mr. O'Shea," said he, "that you and I had better leave +the management of the little ones to the women? You have noticed, +perhaps, that this is Nature's method." + +[Footnote 3: From _Little Citizens_; reprinted by permission of McClure, +Phillips & Company. + +Copyright 1903 by the S.S. McClure Company. + +Copyright 1904 by McClure, Phillips & Company.] + + + + +THE GENIAL IDIOT SUGGESTS A COMIC OPERA + +BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS + + +"There's a harvest for you," said the Idiot, as he perused a recently +published criticism of a comic opera. "There have been thirty-nine new +comic operas produced this year and four of 'em were worth seeing. It is +very evident that the Gilbert and Sullivan industry hasn't gone to the +wall whatever slumps other enterprises have suffered from." + +"That is a goodly number," said the Poet. "Thirty-nine, eh? I knew there +was a raft of them, but I had no idea there were as many as that." + +"Why don't you go in and do one, Mr. Poet?" suggested the Idiot. "They +tell me it's as easy as rolling off a log. All you've got to do is to +forget all your ideas and remember all the old jokes you ever heard. +Slap 'em together around a lot of dances, write two dozen lyrics about +some Googoo Belle, hire a composer, and there you are. Hanged if I +haven't thought of writing one myself." + +"I fancy it isn't as easy as it looks," observed the Poet. "It requires +just as much thought to be thoughtless as it does to be thoughtful." + +"Nonsense," said the Idiot. "I'd undertake the job cheerfully if some +manager would make it worth my while, and what's more, if I ever got +into the swing of the business I'll bet I could turn out a libretto a +day for three days of the week for the next two months." + +"If I had your confidence I'd try it," laughed the Poet, "but alas, in +making me Nature did not design a confidence man." + +"Nonsense again," said the Idiot. "Any man who can get the editors to +print Sonnets to Diana's Eyebrow, and little lyrics of Madison Square, +Longacre Square, Battery Place and Boston Common, the way you do, has a +right to consider himself an adept at bunco. I tell you what I'll do +with you. I'll swap off my confidence for your lyrical facility and see +what I can do. Why can't we collaborate and get up a libretto for next +season? They tell me there's large money in it." + +"There certainly is if you catch on," said the Poet. "Vastly more than +in any other kind of writing that I know. I don't know but that I would +like to collaborate with you on something of the sort. What is your +idea?" + +"Mind's a blank on the subject," sighed the Idiot. "That's the reason I +think I can turn the trick. As I said before, you don't need ideas. +Better off without 'em. Just sit down and write." + +"But you must have some kind of a story," persisted the Poet. + +"Not to begin with," said the Idiot. "Just write your choruses and +songs, slap in your jokes, fasten 'em together, and the thing is done. +First act, get your hero and heroine into trouble. Second act, get 'em +out." + +"And for the third?" queried the Poet. + +"Don't have a third," said the Idiot. "A third is always +superfluous--but if you must have it, make up some kind of a vaudeville +show and stick it in between the first and second." + +"Tush!" said the Bibliomaniac. "That would make a gay comic opera." + +"Of course it would, Mr. Bib," the Idiot agreed. "And that's what we +want. If there's anything in this world that I hate more than another +it is a sombre comic opera. I've been to a lot of 'em, and I give you my +word of honor that next to a funeral a comic opera that lacks gaiety is +one of the most depressing functions known to modern science. Some of +'em are enough to make an undertaker weep with jealous rage. I went to +one of 'em last week called 'The Skylark' with an old chum of mine, who +is a surgeon. You can imagine what sort of a thing it was when I tell +you that after the first act he suggested we leave the theater and come +back here and have some fun cutting my leg off. He vowed that if he ever +went to another opera by the same people he'd take ether beforehand." + +"I shouldn't think that would be necessary," sneered the Bibliomaniac. +"If it was as bad as all that why didn't it put you to sleep?" + +"It did," said the Idiot. "But the music kept waking us up again. There +was no escape from it except that of actual physical flight." + +"Well--about this collaboration of ours," suggested the Poet. "What do +you think we should do first?" + +"Write an opening chorus, of course," said the Idiot. "What did you +suppose? A finale? Something like this: + + "If you want to know who we are, + Just ask the Evening Star, + As he smiles on high + In the deep blue sky, + With his tralala-la-la-la. + We are maidens sweet + With tripping feet, + And the Googoo eyes + Of the Skippity-hi's, + And the smile of the fair Gazoo; + And you'll find our names + 'Mongst the wondrous dames + Of the Whos Who-hoo-hoo-hoo. + +"Get that sung with spirit by sixty-five ladies with blonde wigs and +gold slippers, otherwise dressed up in the uniform of a troop of Russian +Cavalry, and you've got your venture launched." + +"Where can you find people like that?" asked the Bibliomaniac. + +"New York's full of 'em," replied the Idiot. + +"I don't mean the people to act that sort of thing--but where would you +lay your scene?" explained the Bibliomaniac. + +"Oh, any old place in the Pacific Ocean," said the Idiot. "Make your own +geography--everybody else does. There's a million islands out there of +one kind or another, and as defenseless as a two weeks' old infant. If +you want a real one, fish it out and fire ahead. If you don't, make one +up for yourself and call it 'The Isle of Piccolo,' or something of that +sort. After you've got your chorus going, introduce your villain, who +should be a man with a deep bass voice and a piratical past. He's the +chap who rules the roost and is going to marry the heroine to-morrow. +That will make a bully song: + + "I'm a pirate bold + With a heart so cold + That it turns the biggest joys to solemn sorrow; + And the hero-ine, + With her eyes so fine, + I am going to-marry--to-morrow. + + CHORUS: + + "He is go-ing to-marry--to-morrow + The maid with a heart full of sorrow; + For her we are sorry + For she weds to-morry-- + She is go-ing to-marry--to-morrow. + +"Gee!" added the Idiot enthusiastically. "Can't you almost hear that +already?" + +"I am sorry to say," said Mr. Brief, "that I can. You ought to call your +heroine Drivelina." + +"Splendid," cried the Idiot. "Drivelina goes. Well, then on comes +Drivelina and this beast of a Pirate grabs her by the hand and makes +love to her as if he thought wooing was a game of snap the whip. She +sings a soprano solo of protest and the Pirate summons his hirelings to +cast Drivelina into a Donjuan cell when, boom! an American warship +appears on the horizon. The crew under the leadership of a man with a +squeaky tenor voice named Lieutenant Somebody or other comes ashore, +puts Drivelina under the protection of the American flag while his crew +sings the following: + + "We are Jackies, Jackies, Jackies, + And we smoke the best tobaccys + You can find from Zanzibar to Honeyloo. + And we fight for Uncle Sammy, + Yes indeed we do, for damme + You can bet your life that that's the thing to do--doodle-do! + You can bet your life that that's the thing to + doodle--doodle--doodle--doodle-do. + +"Eh! What?" demanded the Idiot. + +"Well--what yourself?" asked the Lawyer. "This is your job. What next?" + +"Well--the Pirate gets lively, tries to assassinate the Lieutenant, who +kills half the natives with his sword and is about to slay the Pirate +when he discovers that he is his long lost father," said the Idiot. "The +heroine then sings a pathetic love song about her Baboon Baby, in a +green light to the accompaniment of a lot of pink satin monkeys banging +cocoa-nut shells together. This drowsy lullaby puts the Lieutenant and +his forces to sleep and the curtain falls on their capture by the +Pirate and his followers, with the chorus singing: + + "Hooray for the Pirate bold, + With his pockets full of gold, + He's going to marry to-morrow. + To-morrow he'll marry, + Yes, by the Lord Harry, + He's go-ing--to-marry--to-mor-row! + And that's a thing to doodle-doodle-doo. + +"There," said the Idiot, after a pause. "How is that for a first act?" + +"It's about as lucid as most of them," said the Poet, "but after all you +have got a story there, and you said you didn't need one." + +"I said you didn't need one to start with," corrected the Idiot. "And +I've proved it. I didn't have that story in mind when I started. That's +where the easiness of the thing comes in. Why, I didn't even have to +think of a name for the heroine. The inspiration for that popped right +out of Mr. Brief's mouth as smoothly as though the name Drivelina had +been written on his heart for centuries. Then the title--Isle of +Piccolo--that's a dandy and I give you my word of honor I'd never even +thought of a title for the opera until that revealed itself like a flash +from the blue; and as for the coon song, 'My Baboon Baby,' there's a +chance there for a Zanzibar act that will simply make Richard Wagner and +Reginald De Koven writhe with jealousy. Can't you imagine the lilt of +it: + + "My Bab-boon--ba-habee, + My Bab-boon--ba-habee-- + I love you dee-her-lee + Yes dee-hee-hee-er-lee. + My Baboon--ba-ha-bee, + My Baboon--ba-ha-bee, + My baboon--Ba-hay-hay-hay-hay-hay-hay-bee-bee. + +"And all those pink satin monkeys bumping their cocoanut shells together +in the green moonlight--" + +"Well, after the first act, what?" asked the Bibliomaniac. + +"The usual intermission," said the Idiot. "You don't have to write that. +The audience generally knows what to do." + +"But your second act?" asked the Poet. + +"Oh, come off," said the Idiot rising. "We were to do this thing in +collaboration. So far I've done the whole blooming business. I'll leave +the second act to you. When you collaborate, Mr. Poet, you've got to do +a little collabbing on your own account. What did you think you were to +do--collect the royalties?" + +"I'm told," said the Lawyer, "that that is sometimes the hardest thing +to do in a comic opera." + +"Well, I'll be self-sacrificing," said the Idiot, "and bear my full +share of it." + +"It seems to me," said the Bibliomaniac, "that that opera produced in +the right place might stand a chance of a run." + +"Thank you," said the Idiot. "After all, Mr. Bib, you are a man of some +penetration. How long a run?" + +"One consecutive night," said the Bibliomaniac. + +"Ah--and where?" demanded the Idiot with a smile. + +"At Bloomingdale," answered the Bibliomaniac severely. + +"That's a very good idea," said the Idiot. "When you go back there, Mr. +Bib, I wish you'd suggest it to the Superintendent." + + + + +WAMSLEY'S AUTOMATIC PASTOR + +BY FRANK CRANE + + +"Yes, sir," said the short, chunky man, as he leaned back against the +gorgeous upholstery of his seat in the smoking compartment of the +sleeping-car; "yes, sir, I knew you was a preacher the minute I laid +eyes on you. You don't wear your collar buttoned behind, nor a black +thingumbob over your shirt front, nor Presbyterian whiskers, nor a +little gold cross on a black string watch chain; them's the usual marks, +I know, and you hain't got any of 'em. But I knew you just the same. You +can't fool J.P. Wamsley. You see, there's a peculiar air about a man +that's accustomed to handle any particular line of goods. You can tell +'em all, if you'll just notice,--any of 'em,--white-goods counter, +lawyer, doctor, travelin' man, politician, railroad,--every one of 'em's +got his sign out, and it don't take a Sherlock Holmes to read it, +neither. It's the same way with them gospel goods. You'll excuse me, but +when I saw you come in here and light a cigar, with an air of +I-will-now-give-you-a-correct-imitation-of-a-human-being, I says to +myself, 'There's one of my gospel friends.' Murder will out, as the +feller says. + +"Experience, did you say? I must have had considerable experience? Well, +I guess yes! Didn't you never hear of my invention, Wamsley's Automatic +Pastor, Self-feedin' Preacher and Lightning Caller? Say, that was the +hottest scheme ever. I'll tell you about it. + +"You see, it's this way. I'm not a church member myself--believe in it, +you know, and all that sort of thing,--I'm for religion strong, and when +it comes to payin' I'm right there with the goods. My wife is a member, +and a good one; in fact, she's so blame good that we average up pretty +well. + +"Well, one day they elected me to the board of trustees at the church; +because I was the heaviest payer, I suppose. I kicked some, not bein' +anxious to pose as a pious individual, owin' to certain brethren in the +town who had a little confidential information on J.P. and might be +inclined to get funny. But they insisted, allowin' that me bein' the +most prominent and successful merchant in the town, and similar rot, I +ought to line up and help out the cause, and so on; so finally I give +in. + +"I went to two or three of their meetin's--and say, honest, they were +the fiercest things ever." + +The minister smiled knowingly. + +"You're on, I see. Ain't those official meetin's of a church the limit? +Gee! Once I went--a cold winter night--waded through snow knee-deep to a +giraffe--and sat there two hours, while they discussed whether they'd +fix the pastor's back fence or not--price six dollars! I didn't say +anything, bein' sort o' new, you know, but I made up my mind that next +time I'd turn loose on 'em, if it was the last thing I did. + +"I says to my wife when I got home, 'Em,' says I, 'if gittin' religion +gives a man softenin' of the brain, like I see it workin' on them men +there to-night, I'm afraid I ain't on prayin' ground and intercedin' +terms, as the feller says. The men in that bunch to-night was worth over +eight hundred thousand dollars, and they took eleven dollars and a +half's worth o' my time chewin' the rag over fixin' the parson's fence. +I'm goin' to bed,' I says, 'and if I shouldn't wake up in the mornin', +if you should miss petty in the mornin', you may know his vital powers +was exhausted by the hilarious proceedin's of this evenin'.' + +"But I must get along to my story, about my automatic pastor. One day +the preacher resigned,--life probably hectored out of him by a lot o' +cheap skates whose notion of holdin' office in church consisted in +cuttin' down expenses and findin' fault with the preacher because he +didn't draw in sinners enough to fill the pews and pay their bills for +'em. + +"When it come to selectin' a committee to get a new pastor, I butted +right in. I had an idea, so--me to the front, leadin' trumps and bangin' +my cards down hard on the table. Excuse my gay and festive reference to +playin'-cards, but what I mean is, that I thought the fullness of time +had arrived and was a-hollerin' for J.P. Wamsley. + +"Well, sir, it was right then and there I invented my automatic pastor, +continuous revolving hand-shaker and circular jolly-hander. + +"I brung it before the official brethren one night and explained its +modus operandi. I had a wax figger made by the same firm that supplies +me with the manikins for my show-windows. And it was a peach, if I do +say it myself. Tall, handsome figger, benevolent face, elegant smile +that won't come off, as the feller says, Chauncey Depew spinnage in +front of each ear. It was a sure lu-lu. + +"'Now,' I says to 'em, 'gentlemen, speakin' o' pastors, I got one here I +want to recommend. It has one advantage anyhow; it won't cost you a +cent. I'll make you a present of it, and also chip in, as heretofore, +toward operatin' expenses.' That caught old Jake Hicks--worth a hundred +thousand dollars, and stingier 'n all git-out. He leaned over and +listened, same as if he was takin' 'em right off the bat. He's a retired +farmer. If you'll find me a closer boy than a retired farmer moved to +town, you can have the best plug hat in my store. + +"'You observe,' I says, 'that he has the leadin' qualifications of all +and comes a heap cheaper than most. He is swivel mounted; that is, the +torso, so to speak, is pinioned onto the legs, so that the upper part of +the body can revolve. This enables him to rotate freely without bustin' +his pants, the vest bein' unconnected with the trousers. + +"'Now, you stand this here, whom we will call John Henry, at the door of +the church as the congregation enters, havin' previously wound him up, +and there he stays, turning around and givin' the glad hand and cheery +smile, and so doth his unchangin' power display as the unwearied sun +from day to day, as the feller says. Nobody neglected, all pleased. You +remember the last pastor wasn't sociable enough, and there was +considerable complaint because he didn't hike right down after the +benediction and jolly the flock as they passed out. We'll have a wire +run the length of the meetin' house, with a gentle slant from the pulpit +to the front door, and as soon as meetin's over, up goes John Henry and +slides down to the front exit, and there he stands, gyratin' and handin' +out pleasant greeting to all,--merry Christmas and happy New Year to +beat the band. + +"'Now as for preachin',' I continued, 'you see all you have to do is to +raise up the coat-tails and insert a record on the phonograph concealed +here in the back of the chest, with a speakin' tube runnin' up to the +mouth. John Henry bein' a regular minister, he can get the Homiletic +Review at a dollar and a half a year; we can subscribe for that, get the +up-to-datest sermons by the most distinguished divines, get some gent +that's afflicted with elocution to say 'em into a record, and on Sunday +our friend and pastor here will reel 'em off fine. You press the +button--he does the rest, as the feller says.' + +"'How about callin' on the members?' inquires Andy Robinson. + +"'Easy,' says I. 'Hire a buggy of Brother Jinks here, who keeps a livery +stable, at one dollar per P.M. Get a nigger to chauffeur the pastor at +fifty cents per same. There you are. Let the boy be provided with an +assortment of records to suit the people--pleasant and sad, consolatory +and gay, encouragin' or reprovin', and so forth. The coon drives up, +puts in a cartridge, sets the pastor in the door, and when the family +gets through with him they sets him out again. + +"'There are, say about three hundred callin' days in the year. He can +easy make fifteen calls a day on an average--equals four thousand five +hundred calls a year, at $450. Of course, there's the records, but they +won't cost over $50 at the outside--you can shave 'em off and use 'em +over again, you know.' + +"'But there's the personality of the pastor,' somebody speaks up. 'It's +that which attracts folks and fills the pews.' + +"'Personality shucks!' says I. 'Haven't we had personality enough? For +every man it attracts it repels two. Your last preacher was one of the +best fellers that ever struck this town. He was a plum brick, and had +lots o' horse sense, to boot. He could preach, too, like a house afire. +But you kicked him out because he wasn't sociable enough. You're askin' +an impossibility. No man can be a student and get up the rattlin' +sermons he did, and put in his time trottin' around callin' on the +sisters. + +"'Now, let's apply business sense to this problem. That's the way I run +my store. Find out what the people want and give it to 'em, is my motto. +Now, people ain't comin' to church unless there's somethin' to draw 'em. +We've tried preachin', and it won't draw. They say they want +sociability, so let's give it to 'em strong. They want attention paid to +'em. You turn my friend here loose in the community, and he'll make each +and every man, woman and child think they're it in less'n a month. If +anybody gets disgruntled, you sic John Henry here on 'em, and you'll +have 'em come right back a-runnin', and payin' their pew rent in +advance. + +"'Then,' I continued, 'that ain't all. There's another idea I propose, +to go along with the pastor, as a sort of side line. That's tradin' +stamps. Simple, ain't it? Wonder why you never thought of it yourselves, +don't you? That's the way with all bright ideas. People drink soda water +all their lives, and along comes a genius and hears the fizz, and goes +and invents a Westinghouse brake. Same as Newton and the apple, and +Columbus and the egg. + +"'All you have to do is to give tradin' stamps for attendance, and your +church fills right up, and John Henry keeps 'em happy. Stamps can be +redeemed at any store. So many stamps gets, say a parlor lamp or a +masterpiece of Italian art in a gilt frame; so many more draws a steam +cooker or an oil stove; so many more and you have a bicycle or a hair +mattress or a what-not; and so on up to where a hat full of 'em gets an +automobile. + +"'I tell you when a family has a what-not in their eye they ain't goin' +to let a little rain keep 'em home from church. If they're all really +too sick to go they'll hire a substitute. And I opine these here stamps +will have a powerful alleviatin' effect on Sunday-sickness. + +"'And then,' I went on, waxin' eloquent, and leanin' the pastor against +the wall, so I could put one hand in my coat and gesture with the other +and make it more impressive,--'and then,' I says, 'just think of them +other churches. We won't do a thing to 'em. That Baptist preacher thinks +he's a wizz because he makes six hundred calls a year. You just wait +till the nigger gets to haulin' John Henry here around town and loadin' +him up with rapid-fire conversations. That Baptist gent will look like +thirty cents, that's what he'll look like. He'll think he's Rojessvinsky +and the Japanese fleet's after him. And the Campbellites think they done +it when they got their new pastor, with a voice like a Bull o' Bashan +comin' down hill. Just wait till we load a few of them extra-sized +records with megaphone attachment into our pastor, and gear him up to +two hundred and fifty words a minute, and then where, oh, where is +Mister Campbellite, as the feller says. + +"'Besides, brethren, this pastor, havin' no family, won't need his back +fence fixed; in fact, he won't need the parsonage; we can rent it, and +the proceeds will go toward operatin' expenses. + +"'What we need to do,' I says in conclusion, 'is to get in line, get up +to date, give the people what they want. We have no way of judgin' the +future but by the past, as the feller says. We know they ain't no human +bein' can measure up to our requirements, so let's take a fall out of +science, and have enterprise and business sense.'" + +J.P. Wamsley reached for a match. + +"Did they accept your offer?" asked his companion. "I am anxious to know +how your plan worked. It has many points in its favor, I confess." + +"No," replied J.P. Wamsley, as he meditatively puffed his cigar and +seemed to be lovingly reviewing the past. "No, they didn't. I'm kind o' +sorry, too. I'd like to have seen the thing tried myself. But," he +added, with a slow and solemn wink, "they passed a unanimous resolution +callin' back the old pastor at an increased salary." + +"I should say, then, that your invention was a success." + +"Well, I didn't lose out on it, anyhow. I've got John Henry rigged up +with a new bunch of whiskers, and posin' in my show-window as Dewitt, +signin' the peace treaty, in an elegant suit of all-wool at $11.50." + + + + +THE BOHEMIANS OF BOSTON + +BY GELETT BURGESS + + + The "Orchids" were as tough a crowd + As Boston anywhere allowed; + It was a club of wicked men-- + The oldest, twelve, the youngest, ten; + They drank their soda colored green, + They talked of "Art," and "Philistine," + They wore buff "wescoats," and their hair + It used to make the waiters stare! + They were so shockingly behaved + And Boston thought them _so_ depraved, + Policemen, stationed at the door, + Would raid them every hour or more! + They used to smoke (!) and laugh out loud (!) + They were a very devilish crowd! + They formed a Cult, far subtler, brainier, + Than ordinary Anglomania, + For all as Jacobites were reckoned, + And gaily toasted Charles the Second! + (What would the Bonnie Charlie say, + If he could see that crowd to-day?) + Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub + Was Regent of the Orchids' Club; + A wild Bohemian was he, + And spent his money fast and free. + He thought no more of spending dimes + On some debauch of pickled limes, + Than you would think of spending nickels + To buy a pint of German pickles! + The Boston maiden passed him by + With sidelong glances of her eye, + She dared not speak (he _was_ so wild), + Yet worshipped this Lotharian child. + Fitz-Willieboy was so _blase_, + He burned a _Transcript_ up one day! + The Orchids fashioned all their style + On Flubadub's infernal guile. + That awful Boston oath was his-- + _He_ used to 'jaculate, "Gee Whiz!" + He showed them that immoral haunt, + The dirty Chinese Restaurant; + And there they'd find him, even when + It got to be as late as ten! + He ate chopped _suey_ (with a fork) + You should have heard the villain talk + Of one _reporter_ that he knew (!) + An artist, and an actor, too!!! + The Orchids went from bad to worse, + Made epigrams--attempted verse! + Boston was horrified and shocked + To hear the way those Orchids mocked; + For they made fun of Boston ways, + And called good men Provincial Jays! + The end must come to such a story, + Gone is the wicked Orchids' glory; + The room was raided by police, + One night, for breaches of the Peace + (There had been laughter, long and loud, + In Boston this is not allowed), + And there, the sergeant of the squad + Found awful evidence--my God!-- + Fitz-Willieboy McFlubadub, + The Regent of the Orchids' Club, + Had written on the window-sill, + This shocking outrage--"Beacon H--ll!" + + + + +A LETTER FROM HOME[4] + +_From the Princess Boo-Lally, at Gumbo Goo, South Sea Islands, to Her +Brother, Prince Umbobo, a Sophomore at Yale._ + +BY WALLACE IRWIN + + + "It is spring, my dear Umbobo, + On the isle of Gumbo Goo, + And your father, King Korobo, + And your mother long for you. + + "We had missionaries Monday, + Much the finest of the year-- + Our old cook came back last Sunday, + And the stews she makes are _dear_. + + "I've the _loveliest_ string of knuckles + Which dear Father gave to me, + And a pair of shin-bone buckles + Which I _so_ wish you could see. + + "You remember Mr. Booloo? + He is coming over soon + With some friends from Unatulu-- + We all hope they'll call at noon. + + "Mr. Booloo's rather slender, + But we'll fix him up with sage, + And I think he'll be quite tender + For a fellow of his age. + + "Genevieve O-loola's marriage + Was arranged so _very_ queer-- + Have you read 'The Bishop's Carriage'? + Don't you think it's just _too dear_? + + "I am hoping next vacation + I may visit you a while. + In this out-of-way location + It's _so_ hard to know the style. + + "Will you try and match the sample + I enclose--be sure it's green. + Get three yards--that will be ample. + Velvet, mind, not velveteen. + + "Gentle mother worries badly, + And she thinks it is a shame + That a man like Dr. Hadley + Lets you play that football game. + + "For the way they hurt each other + Seems so barbarously rude-- + No, you've not been raised, dear brother, + To do anything so crude. + + "And those horrid meals at college-- + Not what you're accustomed to. + It is hard, this quest for knowledge, + But be brave. + "Your sister, Boo." + + "P.S.-- + "If it's not too great a bother + And a mental overtax, + Would you send your poor old father, + C.O.D., a battle-axe?" + +[Footnote 4: From "At the Sign of the Dollar," by Wallace Irwin. +Copyright, 1905, by Fox, Duffield & Co.] + + + + +THE COURTIN' + +BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL + + + God makes sech nights, all white an' still + Fur 'z you can look or listen, + Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, + All silence an' all glisten. + + Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown + An' peeked in thru' the winder, + An' there sot Huldy all alone, + 'Ith no one nigh to hender. + + A fireplace filled the room's one side + With half a cord o' wood in-- + There warn't no stoves (tell comfort died) + To bake ye to a puddin'. + + The wa'nut logs shot sparkles out + Towards the pootiest, bless her, + An' leetle flames danced all about + The chiny on the dresser. + + Agin the chimbley crook-necks hung, + An' in amongst 'em rusted + The old queen's-arm that Gran'ther Young + Fetched back f'om Concord busted. + + The very room, coz she was in, + Seemed warm f'om floor to ceilin', + An' she looked full ez rosy agin + Ez the apples she was peelin'. + + 'T was kin' o' kingdom-come to look + On sech a blessed cretur; + A dogrose blushin' to a brook + Ain't modester nor sweeter. + + He was six foot o' man, A 1, + Clear grit an' human natur'; + None couldn't quicker pitch a ton + Nor dror a furrer straighter. + + He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, + He'd squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, + Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells-- + All is, he couldn't love 'em. + + But long o' her his veins 'ould run + All crinkly like curled maple; + The side she breshed felt full o' sun + Ez a south slope in Ap'il. + + She thought no v'ice bed sech a swing + Ez hisn in the choir; + My! when he made Ole Hundred ring, + She _knowed_ the Lord was nigher. + + An' she'd blush scarlit, right in prayer, + When her new meetin'-bunnet + Felt somehow thru its crown a pair + O' blue eyes sot upun it. + + Thet night, I tell ye, she looked _some_! + She seemed to 've gut a new soul + For she felt sartin-sure he'd come, + Down to her very shoe-sole. + + She heered a foot, an' knowed it tu, + A-raspin' on the scraper-- + All ways to once her feelin's flew + Like sparks in burnt-up paper. + + He kin' o' l'itered on the mat, + Some doubtfle o' the sekle; + His heart kep' goin' pity-pat, + But hern went pity Zekle. + + An' yit she gin her cheer a jerk + Ez though she wished him furder, + An' on her apples kep' to work, + Parin' away like murder. + + "You want to see my Pa, I s'pose?" + "Wal ... no ... I come dasignin'--" + "To see my Ma? She's sprinklin' clo'es + Agin to-morrer's i'nin'." + + To say why gals act so or so, + Or don't, 'ould be presumin'; + Mebby to mean _yes_ an' say _no_ + Comes nateral to women. + + He stood a spell on one foot fust, + Then stood a spell on t' other, + An' on which one he felt the wust + He couldn't ha' told ye nuther. + + Says he, "I'd better call agin"; + Says she, "Think likely, Mister"; + Thet last word pricked him like a pin, + An' ... Wal, he up an' kist her. + + When Ma bimeby upon 'em slips, + Huldy sot pale ez ashes, + All kin' o' smily roun' the lips + An' teary roun' the lashes. + + For she was jes' the quiet kind + Whose naturs never vary, + Like streams that keep a summer mind + Snowhid in Jenooary. + + The blood clost roun' her heart felt glued + Too tight for all expressin', + Tell mother see how metters stood, + An' gin 'em both her blessin'. + + Then her red come back like the tide + Down to the Bay o' Fundy, + An' all I know is they was cried + In meetin' come nex' Sunday. + + + + +THE TOWER OF LONDON + +BY ARTEMUS WARD + + +Mr. Punch, _My Dear Sir_:--I skurcely need inform you that your +excellent Tower is very pop'lar with pe'ple from the agricultooral +districks, and it was chiefly them class which I found waitin at the +gates the other mornin. + +I saw at once that the Tower was established on a firm basis. In the +entire history of firm basisis I don't find a basis more firmer than +this one. + +"You have no Tower in America?" said a man in the crowd, who had somehow +detected my denomination. + +"Alars! no," I anserd; "we boste of our enterprise and improovements, +and yit we are devoid of a Tower. America oh my onhappy country! thou +hast not got no Tower! It's a sweet Boon." + +The gates was opened after a while, and we all purchist tickets, and +went into a waitin-room. + +"My frens," said a pale-faced little man, in black close, "this is a sad +day." + +"Inasmuch as to how?" I said. + +"I mean it is sad to think that so many peple have been killed within +these gloomy walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!" + +"No," I said, "you must excuse me. Others may drop one if they feel like +it; but as for me, I decline. The early managers of this institootion +were a bad lot, and their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't sob for +those who died four or five hundred years ago. If they was my own +relations I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over things which occurd +during the rain of Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful," I continnered. +"Look at the festiv Warders, in their red flannil jackets. They are +cheerful, and why should it not be thusly with us?" + +A Warder now took us in charge, and showed us the Trater's Gate, the +armers, and things. The Trater's Gate is wide enuff to admit about +twenty traters abrest, I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't see +that it was superior to gates in gen'ral. + +Traters, I will here remark, are a onfornit class of peple. If they +wasn't, they wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust up a +country--they fail, and they're traters. They bust her, and they become +statesmen and heroes. + +Take the case of Gloster, afterward Old Dick the Three, who may be seen +at the Tower on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat--take Mr. Gloster's +case. Mr. G. was a conspirator of the basist dye, and if he'd failed, he +would have been hung on a sour apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded, and +became great. He was slewed by Col. Richmond, but he lives in history, +and his equestrian figger may be seen daily for a sixpence, in +conjunction with other em'nent persons, and no extra charge for the +Warder's able and bootiful lectur. + +There's one king in this room who is mounted onto a foaming steed, his +right hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn his name. + +The room where the daggers and pistils and other weppins is kept is +interestin. Among this collection of choice cuttlery I notist the bow +and arrer which those hot-heded old chaps used to conduct battles with. +It is quite like the bow and arrer used at this day by certain tribes of +American Injuns, and they shoot 'em off with such a excellent precision +that I almost sigh'd to be an Injun when I was in the Rocky Mountain +regin. They are a pleasant lot them Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr. Catlin +have told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence, and I found it so. Our +party was stopt on the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones, whose +chief said: + +"Brothers! the pale-face is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinking in the +west, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon cease speakin. Brothers! the poor +red man belongs to a race which is fast becomin extink." + +He then whooped in a shrill manner, stole all our blankets and whisky, +and fled to the primeval forest to conceal his emotions. + +I will remark here, while on the subjeck of Injuns, that they are in the +main a very shaky set, with even less sense than the Fenians, and when I +hear philanthropists be-wailin the fack that every year "carries the +noble red man nearer the settin sun," I simply have to say I'm glad of +it, tho' it is rough on the settin sun. They call you by the sweet name +of Brother one minit, and the next they scalp you with their +Thomas-hawks. But I wander. Let us return to the Tower. + +At one end of the room where the weppins is kept, is a wax figger of +Queen Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss, whose glass eye +flashes with pride, and whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily, as +if conscious of the royal burden he bears. I have associated Elizabeth +with the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up with it at the Surrey Theater, +where _Troo to the Core_ is bein acted, and in which a full bally core +is introjooced on board the Spanish Admiral's ship, giving the audiens +the idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall in Plymouth the moment he +conkers that town. But a very interesting drammer is _Troo to the Core_, +notwithstandin the eccentric conduct of the Spanish Admiral; and very +nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make Martin Truegold a baronet. + +The Warder shows us some instrooments of tortur, such as thumbscrews, +throat-collars, etc., statin that these was conkered from the Spanish +Armady, and addin what a crooil peple the Spaniards was in them +days--which elissited from a bright-eyed little girl of about twelve +summers the remark that she tho't it _was_ rich to talk about the +crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews, when he was in a Tower where +so many poor peple's heads had been cut off. This made the Warder +stammer and turn red. + +I was so pleased with the little girl's brightness that I could have +kissed the dear child, and I would if she'd been six years older. + +I think my companions intended makin a day of it, for they all had +sandwiches, sassiges, etc. The sad-lookin man, who had wanted us to drop +a tear afore we started to go round, fling'd such quantities of sassige +into his mouth that I expected to see him choke hisself to death; he +said to me, in the Beauchamp Tower, where the poor prisoners writ their +onhappy names on the cold walls, "This is a sad sight." + +"It is indeed," I anserd. "You're black in the face. You shouldn't eat +sassige in public without some rehearsals beforehand. You manage it +orkwardly." + +"No," he said, "I mean this sad room." + +Indeed, he was quite right. Tho' so long ago all these drefful things +happened, I was very glad to git away from this gloomy room, and go +where the rich and sparklin Crown Jewils is kept. I was so pleased with +the Queen's Crown, that it occurd to me what a agree'ble surprise it +would be to send a sim'lar one home to my wife; and I asked the Warder +what was the vally of a good, well-constructed Crown like that. He told +me, but on cypherin up with a pencil the amount of funs I have in the +Jint Stock Bank, I conclooded I'd send her a genteel silver watch +instid. + +And so I left the Tower. It is a solid and commandin edifis, but I deny +that it is cheerful. I bid it adoo without a pang. + +I was droven to my hotel by the most melancholly driver of a +four-wheeler that I ever saw. He heaved a deep sigh as I gave him two +shillings. + +"I'll give you six d.'s more," I said, "if it hurts you so." + +"It isn't that," he said, with a hart-rendin groan, "it's only a way I +have. My mind's upset to-day. I at one time tho't I'd drive you into the +Thames. I've been readin all the daily papers to try and understand +about Governor Eyre, and my mind is totterin. It's really wonderful I +didn't drive you into the Thames." + +I asked the onhappy man what his number was, so I could redily find him +in case I should want him agin, and bad him good-by. And then I tho't +what a frollicsome day I'd made of it. + +Respectably, etc. + ARTEMUS WARD. + +--_Punch_, 1866. + + +SCIENCE AND NATURAL HISTORY + +MR. PUNCH, _My Dear Sir_:--I was a little disapinted at not receivin a +invitation to jine in the meetins of the Social Science Congress.... + +I prepared an Essy on Animals to read before the Social Science meetins. +It is a subjeck I may troothfully say I have successfully wrastled with. +I tackled it when only nineteen years old. At that tender age I writ a +Essy for a lit'ry Institoot entitled, "Is Cats to be trusted?" Of the +merits of that Essy it doesn't becum me to speak, but I may be excoos'd +for mentionin that the Institoot parsed a resolution that "whether we +look upon the length of this Essy, or the manner in which it is written, +we feel that we will not express any opinion of it, and we hope it will +be read in other towns." + +Of course the Essy I writ for the Social Science Society is a more +finisheder production than the one on Cats, which was wroten when my +mind was crood, and afore I had masterd a graceful and ellygant stile of +composition. I could not even punctooate my sentences proper at that +time, and I observe with pane, on lookin over this effort of my youth, +that its beauty is in one or two instances mar'd by ingrammaticisms. +This was inexcusable, and I'm surprised I did it. A writer who can't +write in a grammerly manner better shut up shop. + +You shall hear this Essy on Animals. Some day when you have four hours +to spare, I'll read it to you. I think you'll enjoy it. Or, what will be +much better, if I may suggest--omit all picturs in next week's _Punch_, +and do not let your contributors write eny thing whatever (let them have +a holiday; they can go to the British Mooseum;) and publish my Essy +intire. It will fill all your collumes full, and create comment. Does +this proposition strike you? Is it a go? + +In case I had read the Essy to the Social Sciencers, I had intended it +should be the closin attraction. I intended it should finish the +proceedins. I think it would have finished them. I understand animals +better than any other class of human creatures. I have a very animal +mind, and I've been identified with 'em doorin my entire perfessional +career as a showman, more especial bears, wolves, leopards and +serpunts. + +The leopard is as lively a animal as I ever came into contack with. It +is troo he cannot change his spots, but you can change 'em for him with +a paint-brush, as I once did in the case of a leopard who wasn't +nat'rally spotted in a attractive manner. In exhibitin him I used to +stir him up in his cage with a protracted pole, and for the purpuss of +makin him yell and kick up in a leopardy manner, I used to casionally +whack him over the head. This would make the children inside the booth +scream with fright, which would make fathers of families outside the +booth very anxious to come in--because there is a large class of parents +who have a uncontrollable passion for takin their children to places +where they will stand a chance of being frightened to death. + +One day I whacked this leopard more than ushil, which elissited a +remonstrance from a tall gentleman in spectacles, who said, "My good +man, do not beat the poor caged animal. Rather fondle him." + +"I'll fondle him with a club," I ansered, hitting him another whack. + +"I prithy desist," said the gentleman; "stand aside, and see the effeck +of kindness. I understand the idiosyncracies of these creeturs better +than you do." + +With that he went up to the cage, and thrustin his face in between the +iron bars, he said, soothingly, "Come hither, pretty creetur." + +The pretty creetur come-hithered rayther speedy, and seized the +gentleman by the whiskers, which he tore off about enuff to stuff a +small cushion with. + +He said, "You vagabone, I'll have you indicted for exhibitin dangerous +and immoral animals." + +I replied, "Gentle Sir, there isn't a animal here that hasn't a +beautiful moral, but you mustn't fondle 'em. You mustn't meddle with +their idiotsyncracies." + +The gentleman was a dramatic cricket, and he wrote a article for a +paper, in which he said my entertainment wos a decided failure. + +As regards Bears, you can teach 'em to do interestin things, but they're +onreliable. I had a very large grizzly bear once, who would dance, and +larf, and lay down, and bow his head in grief, and give a mournful wale, +etsetry. But he often annoyed me. It will be remembered that on the +occasion of the first battle of Bull Run, it suddenly occurd to the +Fed'ral soldiers that they had business in Washington which ought not to +be neglected, and they all started for that beautiful and romantic city, +maintainin a rate of speed durin the entire distance that would have +done credit to the celebrated French steed _Gladiateur_. Very nat'rally +our Gov'ment was deeply grieved at this defeat; and I said to my Bear +shortly after, as I was givin a exhibition in Ohio--I said, "Brewin, are +you not sorry the National arms has sustained a defeat?" His business +was to wale dismal, and bow his head down, the band (a barrel origin and +a wiolin) playing slow and melancholy moosic. What did the grizzly old +cuss do, however, but commence darncin and larfin in the most joyous +manner? I had a narrer escape from being imprisoned for disloyalty. + + + + +DISLIKES + +BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES + + +I want it to be understood that I consider that a certain number of +persons are at liberty to dislike me peremptorily, without showing +cause, and that they give no offense whatever in so doing. + +If I did not cheerfully acquiesce in this sentiment towards myself on +the part of others, I should not feel at liberty to indulge my own +aversions. I try to cultivate a Christian feeling to all my +fellow-creatures, but inasmuch as I must also respect truth and honesty, +I confess to myself a certain number of inalienable dislikes and +prejudices, some of which may possibly be shared by others. Some of +these are purely instinctive, for others I can assign a reason. Our +likes and dislikes play so important a part in the order of things that +it is well to see on what they are founded. + +There are persons I meet occasionally who are too intelligent by half +for my liking. They know my thoughts beforehand, and tell me what I was +going to say. Of course they are masters of all my knowledge, and a good +deal besides; have read all the books I have read, and in later +editions; have had all the experiences I have been through, and more +too. In my private opinion every mother's son of them will lie at any +time rather than confess ignorance. + +I have a kind of dread, rather than hatred, of persons with a large +excess of vitality; great feeders, great laughers, great story-tellers, +who come sweeping over their company with a huge tidal wave of animal +spirits and boisterous merriment. I have pretty good spirits myself, and +enjoy a little mild pleasantry, but I am oppressed and extinguished by +these great lusty, noisy creatures, and feel as if I were a mute at a +funeral when they get into full blast. + +I can not get along much better with those drooping, languid people, +whose vitality falls short as much as that of the others is in excess. I +have not life enough for two; I wish I had. It is not very enlivening to +meet a fellow-creature whose expression and accents say, "You are the +hair that breaks the camel's back of my endurance, you are the last drop +that makes my cup of woe run over;" persons whose heads drop on one side +like those of toothless infants, whose voices recall the tones in which +our old snuffling choir used to wail out the verses of + + "Life is the time to serve the Lord." + +There is another style which does not captivate me. I recognize an +attempt at the _grand manner_ now and then, in persons who are well +enough in their way, but of no particular importance, socially or +otherwise. Some family tradition of wealth or distinction is apt to be +at the bottom of it, and it survives all the advantages that used to set +it off. I like family pride as well as my neighbors, and respect the +high-born fellow-citizen whose progenitors have not worked in their +shirt-sleeves for the last two generations full as much as I ought to. +But _grand-pere oblige_; a person with a known grandfather is too +distinguished to find it necessary to put on airs. The few Royal Princes +I have happened to know were very easy people to get along with, and had +not half the social knee-action I have often seen in the collapsed +dowagers who lifted their eyebrows at me in my earlier years. + +My heart does not warm as it should do towards the persons, not +intimates, who are always _too_ glad to see me when we meet by accident, +and discover all at once that they have a vast deal to unbosom +themselves of to me. + +There is one blameless person whom I can not love and have no excuse for +hating. It is the innocent fellow-creature, otherwise inoffensive to me, +whom I find I have involuntarily joined on turning a corner. I suppose +the Mississippi, which was flowing quietly along, minding its own +business, hates the Missouri for coming into it all at once with its +muddy stream. I suppose the Missouri in like manner hates the +Mississippi for diluting with its limpid, but insipid current the rich +reminiscences of the varied soils through which its own stream has +wandered. I will not compare myself to the clear or the turbid current, +but I will own that my heart sinks when I find all of a sudden I am in +for a corner confluence, and I cease loving my neighbor as myself until +I can get away from him. + + + + +UNCLE SIMON AND UNCLE JIM + +BY ARTEMUS WARD + + + Uncle Simon he + Clumb up a tree + To see + What he could see, + When presentlee + Uncle Jim + Clumb up beside of him + And squatted down by he. + + + + +THE LITTLE MOCK-MAN + +BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + + The Little Mock-man on the Stairs-- + He mocks the lady's horse 'at rares + At bi-sickles an' things,-- + He mocks the mens 'at rides 'em, too; + An' mocks the Movers, drivin' through, + An' hollers "Here's the way _you_ do + With them-air hitchin'-strings!" + "Ho! ho!" he'll say, + Ole Settlers' Day, + When they're all jogglin' by,-- + "You look like _this_," + He'll say, an' twis' + His mouth an' squint his eye + An' 'tend like _he_ wuz beat the bass + Drum at both ends--an' toots and blares + Ole dinner-horn an' puffs his face-- + The Little Mock-man on the Stairs! + + The Little Mock-man on the Stairs + Mocks all the peoples all he cares + 'At passes up an' down! + He mocks the chickens round the door, + An' mocks the girl 'at scrubs the floor, + An' mocks the rich, an' mocks the pore, + An' ever'thing in town! + "Ho! ho!" says he, + To you er me; + An' ef we turns an' looks, + He's all cross-eyed + An' mouth all wide + Like Giunts is, in books.-- + "Ho! ho!" he yells, "look here at _me_," + An' rolls his fat eyes roun' an' glares,-- + "_You_ look like _this!_" he says, says he-- + The Little Mock-man on the Stairs! + + _The Little Mock-- + The Little Mock-- + The Little Mock-man on the Stairs, + He mocks the music-box an' clock, + An' roller-sofy an' the chairs; + He mocks his Pa an' spec's he wears; + He mocks the man 'at picks the pears + An' plums an' peaches on the shares; + He mocks the monkeys an' the bears + On picture-bills, an' rips an' tears + 'Em down,--an' mocks ist all he cares, + An' EVER'body EVER'wheres!_ + + + + +MAMMY'S LULLABY + +BY STRICKLAND W. GILLILAN + + + Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo? + Sunset still a-shinin' in de wes'; + Sky am full o' windehs an' de stahs am peepin' froo-- + Eb'ryt'ing but mammy's lamb at res'. + Swing 'im to'ds de Eas'lan', + Swing 'im to'ds de Souf-- + See dat dove a-comin' wif a olive in 'is mouf! + Angel hahps a-hummin', + Angel banjos strummin'-- + Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo? + + Cricket fiddleh scrapin' off de rozzum f'um 'is bow, + Whippo'will a-mo'nin' on a lawg; + Moon ez pale ez hit kin be a-risin' mighty slow-- + Stahtled at de bahkin' ob de dawg; + Swing de baby Eas'way, + Swing de baby Wes', + Swing 'im to'ds de Souflan' whah de melon grow de bes'! + Angel singers singin', + Angel bells a-ringin', + Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo? + + Eyelids des a-droopin' li'l loweh all de w'ile, + Undeh lip a-saggin' des a mite; + Li'l baby toofies showin' so't o' lak a smile, + Whiteh dan de snow, or des ez white. + Swing 'im to'ds de No'flan', + Swing 'im to'ds de Eas'-- + Woolly cloud a-comin' fo' t' wrap 'im in 'is fleece! + Angel ban' a-playin'-- + Whut dat music sayin'? + "Sleep, mah li'l pigeon, don' yo' heah yo' mammy coo?" + + + + +MY SWEETHEART + +BY SAMUEL MINTURN PECK + + + Her height? Perhaps you'd deem her tall-- + To be exact, just five feet seven. + Her arching feet are not too small; + Her gleaming eyes are bits of heaven. + Slim are her hands, yet not too wee-- + I could not fancy useless fingers, + Her hands are all that hands should be, + And own a touch whose memory lingers. + + The hue that lights her oval cheeks + Recalls the pink that tints a cherry; + Upon her chin a dimple speaks, + A disposition blithe and merry. + Her laughter ripples like a brook; + Its sound a heart of stone would soften. + Though sweetness shines in every look, + Her laugh is never loud, nor often. + + Though golden locks have won renown + With bards, I never heed their raving; + The girl I love hath locks of brown, + Not tightly curled, but gently waving. + Her mouth?--Perhaps you'd term it large-- + Is firmly molded, full and curving; + Her quiet lips are Cupid's charge, + But in the cause of truth unswerving. + + Though little of her neck is seen, + That little is both smooth and sightly; + And fair as marble is its sheen + Above her bodice gleaming whitely. + Her nose is just the proper size, + Without a trace of upward turning. + Her shell-like ears are wee and wise, + The tongue of scandal ever spurning. + + In mirth and woe her voice is low, + Her calm demeanor never fluttered; + Her every accent seems to go + Straight to one's heart as soon as uttered. + She ne'er coquets as others do; + Her tender heart would never let her. + Where does she dwell? I would I knew; + As yet, alas! I've never met her. + + + + +THE AUTO RUBAIYAT[5] + +BY REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN + + + Move!--Or the Devil Red who puts to flight + Whate'er's before him, to the Left or Right, + Will toss you high as Heaven when he strikes + Your poor clay carcass with his master-might! + + As the Cock crows the "Fiends" who stand before + The Starting-Point, amid the Stream's wild roar, + Shake hands, make wills, and duly are confess'd, + Lest, once departed, they return no more. + + For whether towards Madrid or Washington, + Whether by steam or gasoline they run, + Pedestrians keep getting in their way, + Chauffeurs are being slaughtered one by one. + + A new Fool's every minute born, you say; + Yes, but where speeds the Fool of Yesterday? + Beneath the Road he sleeps, the Autos roar + Close o'er his head, but can not thrill his clay. + + Well, let him sleep! For what have ye to do + With him, who this or Anything pursue + So it take swiftness?--Let the Children scream, + Or Constables shout after--heed not you. + + Oh ye who anti-auto laws would make + And still insist upon the silly brake, + Get in, and try a spin, and then you'll see + How many fines you will impose--and take! + + Ah, my Beloved, fill the Tank that cheers, + Nor heed the Law's rebuke, the Rabble's tears, + Quick! For To-morrow you and I may be + Ourselves with Yesterday's Sev'n Thousand Years. + + A pair of Goggles and a Cap, I trow, + A Stench, a Roar, and my Machine and Thou + Beside me, going ninety miles an hour-- + Oh, Turnpike-road were Paradise enow! + + Ah, Love, could we successfully conspire + Against this sorry World for our desire, + Would we not shatter it to bits without + So much of damage as a busted tire? + + With Gasoline my fading Life provide, + And wash my Body in it when I've died, + And lay me, shrouded in my Cap and Cape, + By some not Autoless new Speedway's side. + + Yon "Devil" that goes pricking o'er the Plain, + How oft hereafter will she go again! + How oft hereafter will she seek her prey? + But seek, alas, for one of us in vain! + + And when, like her, O Love, you come to take + Your morning spin for Appetite's sweet sake, + And pass the spot where I lay buried, then, + In memory of me, fling wide the Brake! + +[Footnote 5: Lippincott's Magazine.] + + + + +THE TWO LADIES + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there were Two Ladies at a Shop where Gorgeous and +Expensive Silks were temptingly displayed. "Only Six Dollars a Yard, +Madam," said the Shopman to One of the Ladies, as he held up the +Lustrous Breadths in those Tempting Fan-shaped Folds peculiar to +Shopmen. + +The Lady hesitated, and looked Dubiously at the Silk, for she knew it +was Beyond her Means. + +The Shopman Continued: "Very Cheap at the Price, and I have Only this +One Dress Pattern remaining. You will Take it? Yes? Certainly, I will +Send it at Once." + +The Lady went away filled with Deep Regret because she had squandered +her Money so Foolishly, and wished she had been Firm in her Refusal to +buy the Goods. + +The Other Lady saw a similar Silk. She felt it Between her Fingers, +Measured its Width with her Eye, and then said Impulsively, "Oh, That is +just What I Want. I will Take Twenty Yards." + +No Sooner was the Silk cut off than the Lady felt Sharp Twinges of +Remorse, for she knew she must Pay for it with the Money she had Saved +Up for a new Dining-Room Carpet. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that the Woman Who Deliberates Is Lost, and That We +Should Think Twice Before We Speak Once. + + + + +THE DIAMOND WEDDING + +BY EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN + + + O Love! Love! Love! What times were those, + Long ere the age of belles and beaux, + And Brussels lace and silken hose, + When, in the green Arcadian close, + You married Psyche under the rose, + With only the grass for bedding! + Heart to heart, and hand to hand, + You followed Nature's sweet command, + Roaming lovingly through the land, + Nor sighed for a Diamond Wedding. + + So have we read in classic Ovid, + How Hero watched for her beloved, + Impassioned youth, Leander. + She was the fairest of the fair, + And wrapt him round with her golden hair, + Whenever he landed cold and bare, + With nothing to eat and nothing to wear, + And wetter than any gander; + For Love was Love, and better than money; + The slyer the theft, the sweeter the honey; + And kissing was clover, all the world over, + Wherever Cupid might wander. + + So thousands of years have come and gone, + And still the moon is shining on, + Still Hymen's torch is lighted; + And hitherto, in this land of the West, + Most couples in love have thought it best + To follow the ancient way of the rest, + And quietly get united. + + But now, True Love, you're growing old-- + Bought and sold, with silver and gold, + Like a house, or a horse and carriage! + Midnight talks, + Moonlight walks, + The glance of the eye and sweetheart sigh, + The shadowy haunts, with no one by, + I do not wish to disparage; + But every kiss + Has a price for its bliss, + In the modern code of marriage; + + And the compact sweet + Is not complete + Till the high contracting parties meet + Before the altar of Mammon; + And the bride must be led to a silver bower, + Where pearls and rubies fall in a shower + That would frighten Jupiter Ammon! + + I need not tell + How it befell, + (Since Jenkins has told the story + Over and over and over again + In a style I can not hope to attain, + And covered himself with glory!) + How it befell, one summer's day, + The king of the Cubans strolled this way-- + King January's his name, they say-- + And fell in love with the Princess May, + The reigning belle of Manhattan; + Nor how he began to smirk and sue, + And dress as lovers who come to woo, + Or as Max Maretzek and Julien do, + When they sit full-bloomed in the ladies' view, + And flourish the wondrous baton. + + He wasn't one of your Polish nobles, + Whose presence their country somehow troubles, + And so our cities receive them; + Nor one of your make-believe Spanish grandees, + Who ply our daughters with lies and candies + Until the poor girls believe them. + No, he was no such charlatan-- + Count de Hoboken Flash-in-the-pan, + Full of gasconade and bravado-- + But a regular, rich Don Rataplan, + Santa Claus de la Muscovado, + Senor Grandissimo Bastinado. + His was the rental of half Havana + And all Matanzas; and Santa Anna, + Rich as he was, could hardly hold + A candle to light the mines of gold + Our Cuban owned, choke-full of diggers; + And broad plantations, that, in round figures, + Were stocked with at least five thousand niggers! + "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may!" + The Senor swore to carry the day, + To capture the beautiful Princess May, + With his battery of treasure; + Velvet and lace she should not lack; + Tiffany, Haughwout, Ball & Black, + Genin and Stewart his suit should back, + And come and go at her pleasure; + Jet and lava--silver and gold-- + Garnets--emeralds rare to behold-- + Diamonds--sapphires--wealth untold-- + All were hers, to have and to hold: + Enough to fill a peck measure! + + He didn't bring all his forces on + At once, but like a crafty old Don, + Who many a heart had fought and won, + Kept bidding a little higher; + And every time he made his bid, + And what she said, and all they did-- + 'Twas written down, + For the good of the town, + By Jeems, of _The Daily Flyer_. + + A coach and horses, you'd think, would buy + For the Don an easy victory; + But slowly our Princess yielded. + A diamond necklace caught her eye, + But a wreath of pearls first made her sigh. + She knew the worth of each maiden glance, + And, like young colts, that curvet and prance, + She led the Don a deuce of a dance, + In spite of the wealth he wielded. + She stood such a fire of silks and laces, + Jewels and gold dressing-cases, + And ruby brooches, and jets and pearls, + That every one of her dainty curls + Brought the price of a hundred common girls; + Folks thought the lass demented! + But at last a wonderful diamond ring, + An infant Kohinoor, did the thing, + And, sighing with love, or something the same, + (What's in a name?) + The Princess May consented. + + Ring! ring the bells, and bring + The people to see the marrying! + Let the gaunt and hungry and ragged poor + Throng round the great cathedral door, + To wonder what all the hubbub's for, + And sometimes stupidly wonder + At so much sunshine and brightness which + Fall from the church upon the rich, + While the poor get all the thunder. + + Ring, ring! merry bells, ring! + O fortunate few, + With letters blue, + Good for a seat and a nearer view! + Fortunate few, whom I dare not name; + Dilettanti! Creme de la Creme! + We commoners stood by the street facade, + And caught a glimpse of the cavalcade. + We saw the bride + In diamond pride, + With jeweled maidens to guard her side-- + Six lustrous maidens in tarletan. + She led the van of the caravan; + Close behind her, her mother + (Dressed in gorgeous _moire antique_, + That told as plainly as words could speak, + She was more antique than the other) + Leaned on the arm of Don Rataplan, + Santa Claus de la Muscovado, + Senor Grandissimo Bastinado. + Happy mortal! fortunate man! + And Marquis of El Dorado! + + In they swept, all riches and grace, + Silks and satins, jewels and lace; + In they swept from the dazzled sun, + And soon in the church the deed was done. + Three prelates stood on the chancel high: + A knot that gold and silver can buy, + Gold and silver may yet untie, + Unless it is tightly fastened; + What's worth doing at all's worth doing well, + And the sale of a young Manhattan belle + Is not to be pushed or hastened; + So two Very-Reverends graced the scene, + And the tall Archbishop stood between, + By prayer and fasting chastened; + The Pope himself would have come from Rome, + But Garibaldi kept him at home. + Haply those robed prelates thought + Their words were the power that tied the knot; + But another power that love-knot tied, + And I saw the chain round the neck of the bride-- + A glistening, priceless, marvelous chain, + Coiled with diamonds again and again, + As befits a diamond wedding; + Yet still 'twas a chain, and I thought she knew it, + And half-way longed for the will to undo it, + By the secret tears she was shedding. + + But isn't it odd to think, whenever + We all go through that terrible River-- + Whose sluggish tide alone can sever + (The Archbishop says) the Church decree, + By floating one into Eternity + And leaving the other alive as ever-- + As each wades through that ghastly stream, + The satins that rustle and gems that gleam, + Will grow pale and heavy, and sink away + To the noisome River's bottom-clay! + Then the costly bride and her maidens six, + Will shiver upon the banks of the Styx, + Quite as helpless as they were born-- + Naked souls, and very forlorn; + The Princess, then, must shift for herself, + And lay her royalty on the shelf; + She, and the beautiful Empress, yonder, + Whose robes are now the wide world's wonder, + And even ourselves, and our dear little wives, + Who calico wear each morn of their lives, + And the sewing-girls, and _les chiffonniers_, + In rags and hunger--a gaunt array-- + And all the grooms of the caravan-- + Ay, even the great Don Rataplan + Santa Claus de la Muscavado + Senor Grandissimo Bastinado-- + That gold-encrusted, fortunate man-- + All will land in naked equality: + The lord of a ribboned principality + Will mourn the loss of his _cordon_; + Nothing to eat and nothing to wear + Will certainly be the fashion there! + Ten to one, and I'll go it alone; + Those most used to a rag and a bone, + Though here on earth they labor and groan, + Will stand it best, as they wade abreast + To the other side of Jordan. + + + + +AN ARKANSAS PLANTER + +BY OPIE READ + + +Slowly and heavily the Major walked out upon the veranda. He stood upon +the steps leading down into the yard, and he saw Louise afar off +standing upon the river's yellow edge. She had thrown her hat upon the +sand, and she stood with her hands clasped upon her brown head. A wind +blew down the stream, and the water lapped at her feet. The Major looked +back into the library, at the door wherein Pennington had stood, and +sighed with relief upon finding that he was gone. He looked back toward +the river. The girl was walking along the shore, meditatively swinging +her hat. He stepped to the corner of the house, and, gazing down the +road, saw Pennington on a horse, now sitting straight, now bending low +over the horn of the saddle. The old gentleman had a habit of making a +sideward motion with his hand as if he would put all unpleasant thoughts +behind him, and now he made the motion not only once, but many times. +And it seemed that his thoughts would not obey him, for he became more +imperative in his pantomimic demand. + +At one corner of the large yard, where the smooth ground broke off into +a steep slope to the river, there stood a small office built of brick. +It was the Major's executive chamber, and thither he directed his steps. +Inside this place his laugh was never heard; at the door his smile +always faded. In this commercial sanctuary were enforced the exactions +that made the plantation thrive. Outside, in the yard, in the "big +house," elsewhere under the sky, a plea of distress might moisten his +eyes and soften his heart to his own financial disadvantage, but under +the moss-grown shingles of the office all was business, hard, +uncompromising. It was told in the neighborhood that once, in this +inquisition of affairs, he demanded the last cent possessed by a widowed +woman, but that, while she was on her way home, he overtook her, +graciously returned the money and magnanimously tore to pieces a +mortgage that he held against her small estate. + +Just as he entered the office there came across the yard a loud and +impatient voice. "Here, Bill, confound you, come and take this horse. +Don't you hear me, you idiot? You infernal niggers are getting to be so +no-account that the last one of you ought to be driven off the place. +Trot, confound you. Here, take this horse to the stable and feed him. +Where is the Major? In the office? The devil he is." + +Toward the office slowly strode old Gideon Batts, fanning himself with +his white slouch hat. He was short, fat, and bald; he was bow-legged +with a comical squat; his eyes stuck out like the eyes of a swamp frog; +his nose was enormous, shapeless, and red. To the Major's family he +traced the dimmest line of kinship. During twenty years he had operated +a small plantation that belonged to the Major, and he was always at +least six years behind with his rent. He had married the widow Martin, +and afterward swore that he had been disgracefully deceived by her, that +he had expected much but had found her moneyless; and after this he had +but small faith in woman. His wife died and he went into contented +mourning, and out of gratitude to his satisfied melancholy, swore that +he would pay his rent, but failed. Upon the Major he held a strong hold, +and this was a puzzle to his neighbors. Their characters stood at +fantastic and whimsical variance; one never in debt, the other never out +of debt; one clamped by honor, the other feeling not its restraining +pinch. But together they would ride abroad, laughing along the road. To +Mrs. Cranceford old Gid was a pest. With the shrewd digs of a woman, the +blood-letting side stabs of her sex, she had often shown her disapproval +of the strong favor in which the Major held him; she vowed that her +husband had gathered many an oath from Gid's swollen store of execration +(when, in truth, Gid had been an apt pupil under the Major), and she had +hoped that the Major's attachment to the church would of necessity free +him from the humiliating association with the old sinner, but it did +not, for they continued to ride abroad, laughing along the road. + +Like a skittish horse old Gid shied at the office door. Once he had +crossed that threshold and it had cost him a crop of cotton. + +"How are you, John?" was Gid's salutation as he edged off, still fanning +himself. + +"How are you, sir?" was the Major's stiff recognition of the fact that +Gid was on earth. + +"Getting hotter, I believe, John." + +"I presume it is, sir." The Major sat with his elbow resting on a desk, +and about him were stacked threatening bundles of papers; and old Gid +knew that in those commercial romances he himself was a familiar +character. + +"Are you busy, John?" + +"Yes, but you may come in." + +"No, I thank you. Don't believe I've got time." + +"Then take time. I want to talk to you. Come in." + +"No, not to-day, John. Fact is I'm not feeling very well. Head's all +stopped up with a cold, and these summer colds are awful, I tell you. +It was a summer cold that took my father off." + +"How's your cotton in that low strip along the bayou?" + +"Tolerable, John; tolerable." + +"Come in. I want to talk to you about it." + +"Don't believe I can stand the air in there, John. Head all stopped up. +Don't believe I'm going to live very long." + +"Nonsense. You are as strong as a buck." + +"You may think so, John, but I'm not. I thought father was strong, too, +but a summer cold got him. I am getting along in years, John, and I find +that I have to take care of myself. But if you really want to talk to me +about that piece of cotton, come out where it's cool." + +The Major shoved back his papers and arose, but hesitated; and Gid stood +looking on, fanning himself. The Major stepped out and Gid's face was +split asunder with a broad smile. + +"I gad. I've been up town and had a set-to with old Baucum and the rest +of them. Pulled up fifty winner at poker and jumped. Devilish glad to +see you; miss you every minute of the time I'm away. Let's go over here +and sit down on that bench." + +They walked toward a bench under a live-oak tree, and upon Gid's +shoulder the Major's hand affectionately rested. They halted to laugh, +and old Gid shoved the Major away from him, then seized him and drew him +back. They sat down, still laughing, but suddenly the Major became +serious. + +"Gid, I'm in trouble," he said. + +"Nonsense, my boy, there is no such thing as trouble. Throw it off. Look +at me. I've had enough of what the world calls trouble to kill a dozen +ordinary men, but just look at me--getting stronger every day. Throw it +off. What is it anyway?" + +"Louise declares that she is going to marry Pennington." + +"What!" old Gid exclaimed, turning with a bouncing flounce and looking +straight at the Major. "Marry Pennington! Why, she shan't, John. That's +all there is of it. We object and that settles it. Why, what the deuce +can she be thinking about?" + +"Thinking about him," the Major answered. + +"Yes, but she must quit it. Why, it's outrageous for as sensible a girl +as she is to think of marrying that fellow. You leave it to me; hear +what I said? Leave it to me." + +This suggested shift of responsibility did not remove the shadow of +sadness that had fallen across the Major's countenance. + +"You leave it to me and I'll give her a talk she'll not forget. I'll +make her understand that she's a queen, and a woman is pretty devilish +skittish about marrying anybody when you convince her that she's a +queen. What does your wife say about it?" + +"She hasn't said anything. She's out visiting and I haven't seen her +since Louise told me of her determination to marry him." + +"Don't say determination, John. Say foolish notion. But it's all right." + +"No, it's not all right." + +"What, have you failed to trust me? Is it possible that you have lost +faith in me? Don't do that, John, for if you do it will be a never +failing source of regret. You don't seem to remember what my powers of +persuasion have accomplished in the past. When I was in the legislature, +chairman of the Committee on County and County Lines, what did my +protest do? It kept them from cutting off a ten-foot strip of this +county and adding it to Jefferson. You must remember those things, +John, for in the factors of persuasion lie the shaping of human life. +I've been riding in the hot sun and I think that a mint julep would hit +me now just about where I live. Say, there, Bill, bring us some mint, +sugar and whisky. And cold water, mind you." + +"Ah," said old Gideon, sipping his scented drink, "virtue may become +wearisome, and we may gape during the most fervent prayer, but I gad, +John, there is always the freshness of youth in a mint julep. Pour just +a few more drops of liquor into mine, if you please--want it to rassle +me a trifle, you know. Recollect those come-all ye songs we used to +sing, going down the river? Remember the time I snatched the sword out +of my cane and lunged at a horse trader from Tennessee? Scoundrel +grabbed it and broke it off and it was all I could do to keep him from +establishing a close and intimate relationship with me. Great old days, +John; and I gad, they'll never come again." + +"I remember it all, Gid, and it was along there that you fell in love +with a woman that lived at Mortimer's Bend." + +"Easy, now, John. A trifle more liquor, if you please. Thank you. Yes, I +used to call her the wild plum. Sweet thing, and I had no idea that she +was married until her lout of a husband came down to the landing with a +double-barrel gun. Ah, Lord, if she had been single and worth money I +could have made her very happy. Fate hasn't always been my friend, +John." + +"Possibly not, Gid, but you know that fate to be just should divide her +favors, and this time she leaned toward the woman." + +"Slow, John. I gad, there's your wife." + +A carriage drew up at the yard gate and a woman stepped out. She did not +go into the house, but seeing the Major, came toward him. She was tall, +with large black eyes and very gray hair. In her step was suggested the +pride of an old Kentucky family, belles, judges and generals. She smiled +at the Major and bowed stiffly at old Gid. The two men arose. + +"Thank you, I don't care to sit down," she said. "Where is Louise?" + +"I saw her down by the river just now," the Major answered. + +"I wish to see her at once," said his wife. + +"Shall I go and call her, madam?" Gid asked. + +She gave him a look of surprise and answered: "No, I thank you." + +"No trouble, I assure you," Gid persisted. "I am pleased to say that age +has not affected my voice, except to mellow it with more of reverence +when I address the wife of a noble man and the mother of a charming +girl." + +She had dignity, but humor was never lost upon her, and she smiled. This +was encouraging, and old Gid proceeded: "I was just telling the Major of +my splendid prospects for a bountiful crop this year, and I feel that +with this blessing of Providence I shall soon be able to meet all my +obligations. I saw our rector, Mr. Mills, this morning, and he spoke of +how thankful I ought to be--he had just passed my bayou field--and I +told him that I would not only assert my gratitude, but would prove it +with a substantial donation to the church at the end of the season." + +In the glance which she gave him there was refined and gentle contempt; +and then she looked down upon the decanter of whisky. Old Gideon drew +down the corners of his mouth, as was his wont when he strove to excite +compassion. + +"Yes," he said with a note of pity forced upon his voice, "I am +exceedingly thankful for all the blessings that have come to me, but I +haven't been very well of late; rather feeble to-day, and the kind Major +noticing it, insisted upon my taking a little liquor, the medicine of +our sturdy and gallant fathers, madam." + +The Major sprawled himself back with a roaring laugh, and hereupon Gid +added: "It takes the Major a long time to get over a joke. Told him one +just now and it tickled him mighty nigh to death. Well, I must be going +now, and, madam, if I should chance to see anything of your charming +daughter, I will tell her that you desire a conference with her. +William," he called, "my horse, if you please." + + * * * * * + +The Major's wife went into the house as Batts came up, glancing back at +him as she passed through the door; and in her eyes there was nothing as +soft as a tear. The old fellow winced, as he nearly always did when she +gave him a direct look. + +"Are you all well?" Gideon asked, lifting the tails of his long coat and +seating himself in a rocking chair. + +"First-rate," the Major answered, drawing forward another rocker; and +when he had sat down, he added: "Somewhat of an essence of November in +the air." + +"Yes," Gid assented; "felt it in my joints before I got up this +morning." From his pocket he took a plug of tobacco. + +"I thought you'd given up chewing," said the Major. "Last time I saw you +I understood you to say that you had thrown your tobacco away." + +"I did, John; but, I gad, I watched pretty close where I threw it. +Fellow over here gave me some stuff that he said would cure me of the +appetite, and I took it until I was afraid it would, and then threw it +away. I find that when a man quits tobacco he hasn't anything to look +forward to. I quit for three days once, and on the third day, about the +time I got up from the dinner table, I asked myself: 'Well, now, got +anything to come next?' And all I could see before me was hours of +hankering; and, I gad, I slapped a negro boy on a horse and told him to +gallop over to the store and fetch me a hunk of tobacco. And after I +broke my resolution I thought I'd have a fit there in the yard waiting +for that boy to come back. I don't believe that it's right for a man to +kill any appetite that the Lord has given him. Of course, I don't +believe in the abuse of a good thing, but it's better to abuse it a +little sometimes than not to have it at all. If virtue consists in +deadening the nervous system to all pleasurable influences, why, you may +just mark my name off the list. There was old man Haskill. I sat up with +him the night after he died, and one of the men with me was harping upon +the great life the old fellow had lived--never chewed, never smoked, +never was drunk, never gambled, never did anything except to stand still +and be virtuous--and I couldn't help but feel that he had lost nothing +by dying." + + + + +THE TWO YOUNG MEN + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there were Two Young Men of Promising Capabilities. + +One pursued no Especial Branch of Education, but Contented himself with +a Smattering of many different Arts and Sciences, exhibiting a Moderate +Proficiency in Each. When he Came to Make a Choice of some means of +Earning a Livelihood, he found he was Unsuccessful, for he had no +Specialty, and Every Employer seemed to Require an Expert in his Line. + +The Other, from his Earliest Youth, bent all his Energies toward +Learning to play the Piano. He studied at Home and Abroad with Greatest +Masters, and he Achieved Wonderful Success. But as he was about to Begin +his Triumphant and Profitable Career, he had the Misfortune to lose both +Thumbs in a Railway Accident. + +Thus he was Deprived of his Intended Means of Earning a Living, and as +he had no other Accomplishment he was Forced to Subsist on Charity. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that a Jack of all Trades is Master of None, and that +It Is Not Well to put All our Eggs in One Basket. + + + + +THE TWO HOUSEWIVES + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there were Two Housewives who must Needs go to Market to +purchase the Day's Supplies. + +One of Them, who was of a Dilatory Nature, said: + +"I will not Hurry Myself, for I Doubt Not the Market contains Plenty for +all who come." + +She therefore Sauntered Forth at her Leisure, and on reaching the Market +she found to her Dismay that the Choicest Cuts and the Finest Produce +had All been Sold, and there remained for her only the Inferior Meats +and Some Withered Vegetables. + +The Other, who was One of the Hustling, Wide-awake Sort, said: + +"I will Bestir myself Betimes and Hasten to Market that I may Take my +Pick ere my Neighbors appear on the Scene." + +She did so, and when she Reached the Market she Discovered that the +Fresh Produce had not yet Arrived, and she must Content herself with the +Remnants of Yesterday's Stock. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that The Early Bird Gets the Worm, and that There Are +Always as Good Fish In the Sea as Ever were Caught. + + + + +IN PHILISTIA + +BY BLISS CARMAN + + + Of all the places on the map, + Some queer and others queerer, + Arcadia is dear to me, + Philistia is dearer. + + There dwell the few who never knew + The pangs of heavenly hunger + As fresh and fair and fond and frail + As when the world was younger. + + If there is any sweeter sound + Than bobolinks or thrushes, + It is the _frou-frou_ of their silks-- + The roll of their barouches. + + I love them even when they're good, + As well as when they're sinners-- + When they are sad and worldly wise + And when they are beginners. + + (I say I do; of course the fact, + For better or for worse, is, + My unerratic life denies + My too erotic verses.) + + I dote upon their waywardness, + Their foibles and their follies. + If there's a madder pate than Di's, + Perhaps it may be Dolly's. + + They have no "problems" to discuss, + No "theories" to discover; + They are not "new"; and I--I am + Their very grateful lover. + + I care not if their minds confuse + Alastor with Aladdin; + And Cimabue is far less + To them than Chimmie Fadden. + + They never heard of William Blake, + Nor saw a Botticelli; + Yet one is, "Yours till death, Louise," + And one, "Your loving Nelly." + + They never tease me for my views, + Nor tax me with my grammar; + Nor test me on the latest news, + Until I have to stammer. + + They never talk about their "moods," + They never know they have them; + The world is good enough for them, + And that is why I love them. + + They never puzzle me with Greek, + Nor drive me mad with Ibsen; + Yet over forms as fair as Eve's + They wear the gowns of Gibson. + + + + +THE DYING GAG + +BY JAMES L. FORD + + +There was an affecting scene on the stage of a New York theater the +other night--a scene invisible to the audience and not down on the +bills, but one far more touching and pathetic than anything enacted +before the footlights that night, although it was a minstrel company +that gave the entertainment. + +It was a wild, blustering night, and the wind howled mournfully around +the street corners, blinding the pedestrians with the clouds of dust +that it caught up from the gutters and hurled into their faces. + +Old man Sweeny, the stage doorkeeper, dozing in his little glazed box, +was awakened by a sudden gust that banged the stage door and then went +howling along the corridor, almost extinguishing the gas-jets and making +the minstrels shiver in their dressing-rooms. + +"What! You here to-night!" exclaimed old man Sweeny, as a frail figure, +muffled up in a huge ulster, staggered through the doorway and stood +leaning against the wall, trying to catch his breath. + +"Yes; I felt that I couldn't stay away from the footlights to-night. +They tell me I'm old and worn out and had better take a rest, but I'll +go on till I drop," and with a hollow cough the Old Gag plodded slowly +down the dim and drafty corridor and sank wearily on a sofa in the big +dressing-room, where the other Gags and Conundrums were awaiting their +cues. + +"Poor old fellow!" said one of them, sadly. "He can't hold out much +longer." + +"He ought not to go on except at matinees," replied another veteran, who +was standing in front of the mirror trimming his long, silvery beard, +and just then an attendant came in with several basins of gruel, and the +old Jests tucked napkins under their chins and sat down to partake of a +little nourishment before going on. + +The bell tinkled and the entertainment began. One after another the +Jokes and Conundrums heard their cues, went on, and returned to the +dressing-room, for they all had to go on again in the after-piece. The +house was crowded to the dome, and there was scarcely a dry eye in the +vast audience as one after another of the old Quips and Jests that had +been treasured household words in many a family came on and then +disappeared to make room for others of their kind. + +As the evening wore on the whisper ran through the theater that the Old +Gag was going on that night--perhaps for the last time; and many an eye +grew dim, many a pulse beat quicker at the thought of listening once +more to that hoary Jest, about whose head were clustered so many sacred +memories. + +Meanwhile the Old Gag was sitting in his corner of the dressing-room, +his head bowed on his breast, his gruel untasted on the tray before him. +The other Gags came and went, but he heeded them not. His thoughts were +far away. He was dreaming of old days, of his early struggles for fame, +and of his friends and companions of years ago. "Where are they now?" he +asked himself, sadly. "Some are wanderers on the face of the earth, in +comic operas. Two of them found ignoble graves in the 'Tourists'' +company. Others are sleeping beneath the daisies in Harper's 'Editor's +Drawer.'" + +"You're called, sir!" + +The Old Gag awoke from his reverie, started to his feet, and, throwing +aside his heavy ulster, staggered to the entrance and stood there +patiently waiting for his cue. + +"You're hardly strong enough to go on to-night," said a Merry Jest, +touching him kindly on the arm; but the gray-bearded one shook him off, +saying hoarsely: + +"Let be! Let be! I must read those old lines once more--it may be for +the last time." + +And now a solemn hush fell upon the vast audience as a sad-faced +minstrel uttered in tear-compelling accents the most pathetic words in +all the literature of minstrelsy: + +"And so you say, Mr. Johnson, that all the people on the ship were +perishing of hunger, and yet you were eating fried eggs. How do you +account for that?" + +For one moment a deathlike silence prevailed. Then the Old Gag stepped +forward and in clear, ringing tones replied: + +"The ship lay to, and I got one." + +A wild, heartrending sob came from the audience and relieved the tension +as the Old Gag staggered back into the entrance and fell into the +friendly arms that were waiting to receive him. + +Sobbing Conundrums bore him to a couch in the dressing-room. Weeping +Jokes strove in vain to bring back the spark of life to his inanimate +form. But all to no avail. + +The Old Gag was dead. + + + + +IN ELIZABETH'S DAY + +BY WALLACE RICE + + + Who would not give the treasure + Of very many lives + If some kind fate would pleasure + To let him be where Ben is + A-playing Kit at tennis, + Or playing Will at fives? + + The racquet ne'er so deftly + Is turned, whoever strives, + The ball flies ne'er so swiftly + As thought and tongue where Ben is + A-playing Kit at tennis, + Or playing Will at fives. + + + + +THE TWO AUTOMOBILISTS + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time there were Two Young Men, each of whom Bought an +Automobile. + +One Young Man, being of a Bold and Audacious nature, said: + +"I will make my Machine go so Fast that I will break all Previous +Records." + +Accordingly, he did So, and he Flew through the Small Town like a Red +Dragon Pursuing his Prey. + +Unheeding all Obstacles in his Mad Career, his Automobile ran into a +Wall of Rock, and was dashed to Pieces. Also, the young Man was killed. + +The Other Young Man, being of a Timorous and Careful Disposition, +started off with great Caution and Rode at a Slow Pace, pausing now and +then, Lest he might Run into Something. + +The Result was, that Two Automobiles and an Ice Wagon ran into him from +behind, spoiling his Car and Killing the Cautious Young Man. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches Us, The More Haste The Less Speed, and Delays Are +Dangerous. + + + + +THE NEW VERSION + +BY W.J. LAMPTON + + + A soldier of the Russians + Lay japanned at Tschrtzvkjskivitch, + There was lack of woman's nursing + And other comforts which + Might add to his last moments + And smooth the final way;-- + But a comrade stood beside him + To hear what he might say. + The japanned Russian faltered + As he took that comrade's hand, + And he said: "I never more shall see + My own my native land; + Take a message and a token + To some distant friends of mine, + For I was born at Smnlxzrskgqrxzski, + Fair Smnlxzrskgqrxzski on the Irkztrvzkimnov." + + + + +SOUTHERN SKETCHES + +BY BILL ARP + + +JIM ALLCORN + +I was only thinkin' how much better it is to be in a lively humor than +be goin' about like a disappointed offis seeker. Good humor is a blessed +thing in a family and smooths down a heap of trubble. I never was mad +but a few times in my life, and then I wasn't mad long. Foaks thought I +was mad when I fout Jim Allcorn, but I wasent. I never had had any +grudge agin Jim. He had never done me any harm, but I could hear of his +sayin' around in the naborhood that Bill Arp had played cock of the walk +long enuf. So one day I went over to Chulio court ground to joak with +the boys, and shore enuf Jim was there, and I soon perseeved that the +devil was in him. He had never been whipped by anybody in the distrikt, +and he outweighed me by about fifteen pounds. A drink or two had made +him sassy, and so he commenced walkin' around first to one crowd, and +then to another, darin' anybody to fite him. He would pint to his +forrerd and say, "I'll give anybody five dollars to hit that." I was +standin' tawkin' to Frank Air and John Johnsin, and as nobody took up +Jim's offer, thinks says I to myself, if he cums round here a huntin' +for a fite he shall have one, by golly. If he dares me to hit him I'll +do it if it's the last lick I ever strike on this side of Jordin. Frank +Air looked at me, and seemed to know what I was a thinkin', and says +he, "Bill, jest let Allcorn alone. He's too big for you, and besides, +there ain't nothin' to fite about." By this time Jim was makin' rite +towards us. I put myself in position, and by the time he got to us every +muscle in my body was strung as tite as a banjo. I was worked up +powerful, and felt like I could whip a campmeetin' of wild cats. Shore +enuf Jim stepped up defiantly, and lookin' me rite in the eye, says he, +"I dare anybody to hit that," and he touched his knuckles to his +forrerd. He had barely straightened before I took him rite in the left +eye with a sock-dolyger that popped like a wagin' whip. It turned him +half round, and as quick as lightnin' I let him hav another on the right +temple, and followed it up with a leap that sprawled him as flat as a +foot mat. I knowed my customer, and I never giv him time to rally. If +ever a man was diligent in business it was me. I took him so hard and so +fast in the eyes with my fists, and in his bred basket with my knees, +that he didn't hav a chance to see or to breathe, and he was the worst +whipped man in two minets I ever seed in my life. When he hollered I +helped him up and breshed the dirt off his clothes, and he was as umble +as a ded nigger and as sober as a Presbyterian preacher. We took a dram +on the strength of it, and was always good frends afterwards. + +But I dident start to tell you about that. + + +JIM PERKINS (COUSIN OF ELI) + +I jist wanted to say that I wasent mad with Jim Allcorn, as sum peepul +supposed; but it do illustrate the onsertainty of human kalkulashuns in +this subloonery world. The disappintments of life are amazin', and if a +man wants to fret and grumble at his luck he can find a reesunable +oppertunity to do so every day that he lives. Them sort of +constitutional grumblers ain't much cumpany to me. I'd rather be Jim +Perkins with a bullit hole through me and take my chances. Jim, you +know, was shot down at Gains' Mill, and the ball went in at the +umbilikus, as Dr. Battey called it, and cum out at the backbone. The +Doktor sounded him, and sez he, "Jeems, my friend, your wound is +mortal." Jim looked at the Doktor, and then at me, and sez he, "That's +bad, ain't it?" "Mighty bad," sez I, and I was as sorry for him as I +ever was for anybody in my life. Sez he, "Bill, I'd make a will if it +warn't for one thing." "What's that, Jim?" sez I. He sorter smiled and +sez, "I hain't got nothin' to will." He then raised up on his elbow, and +sez he, "Doktor, is there one chance in a hundred for me?" and the +Doktor sez, "Jest about, Jim." "Well, then," sez he, "I'll git well--I +feel it in my gizzard." He looked down at the big hole in his umbilikus, +and sez he, "If I do get well, won't it be a great _naval_ viktry, +Doktor Battey?" Well, shore enuff he did git well, and in two months he +was fitin' the Yanks away up in Maryland. + +But I didn't start to tell you about that. + + +IKE MACKOY + +I jest stuck it in by way of illustratin' the good effeks of keepin' up +one's spirits. My motto has always been to never say die, as Gen. Nelson +sed at the battle of Madagascar, or sum other big river. All things +considered, I've had a power of good luck in my life. I don't mean money +luck, by no means, for most of my life I've been so ded poor that +Lazarus would hev been considered a note shaver compared with me. But +I've been in a heap of close places, and sumhow always cum out rite side +up with keer. Speakin' of luck, I don't know that I ever told you about +that rassel I had with Ike McKoy at Bob Hide's barbyku. You see Ike was +perhaps the best rasler in all Cherokee, and he jest hankered after a +chance to break a bone or two in my body. Now, you know, I never hunted +for a fite nor a fuss in my life, but I never dodged one. I dident want +a tilt with Ike, for my opinyun was that he was the best man of the two, +but I never sed anything and jest trusted to luck. We was both at the +barbyku, and he put on a heap of airs, and strutted around with his +shirt collar open clean down to his waist, and his hat cocked on one +side as sassy as a confedrit quartermaster. He took a dram or two and +stuffed himself full of fresh meat at dinner time. Purty soon it was +norated around that Ike was going to banter me for a rassel, and, shore +enuff, he did. The boys were all up for some fun, and Ike hollered out, +"I'll bet ten dollars I can paster the length of any man on the ground, +and I'll giv Bill Arp five dollars to take up the bet." Of course there +was no gittin' around the like of that. The banter got my blood up, and +so, without waitin' for preliminaries, I shucked myself and went in. The +boys was all powerfully excited, and was a bettin' evry dollar they +could raise; and Bob Moore, the feller I had licked about a year before, +jumped on a stump and sed hed bet twenty dollars to ten that Ike would +knock the breath out of me the first fall. I jest walked over to him +with the money and sed, "I'll take that bet." The river was right close +to the ring, and the bank was purty steep. I had on a pair of old +breeches that had been sained in and dried so often they was about half +rotten. When we hitched, Ike took good britches hold, and lifted me up +and down a few times like I was a child. He was the heaviest, but I had +the most spring in me, and so I jest let him play round for sum time, +limber like, until he suddenly took a notion to make short work of it +by one of his backleg movements. He drawed me up to his body and lifted +me in the air with a powerful twist. Just at that minit his back was +close to the river bank, and as my feet touched the ground I giv a +tremenjius jerk backwards, and a shuv forwards, and my britches busted +plum open on the back, and tore clean off in front, and he fell from me +and tumbled into the water, kerchug, and went out of sight as clean as a +mud turtle in a mill pond. Such hollerin' as them boys done I rekon +never heard in them woods. I jumped in and helped Ike get out as he riz +to the top. He had took in a quart or two of water on top of his +barbyku, and he set on the bank and throwed up enuf vittels to feed a +pack of houns for a week. When he got over it he laffd, and sed Sally +told him before he left home he'd better let Bill Arp alone--for nobody +could run agin his luck. Ike always believed he would hav throwd me if +britches holt hadent broke, and I rekon may be he would. One thing is +sertin, it cured him of braggin', and that helps anybody. I never did +like a braggin' man. As a genrul thing they ain't much akkount, and +remind me of a dog I used to have, named Cesar. + + +DOGS + +But I dident start to tell you a dog story--only now, since I've +mentioned him, I must tell you a circumstance about Cees. He was a +middlin' size broot, with fox ears and yaller spots over his eyes, and +could out bark and out brag all creation when he was inside the yard. If +another dog was goin' along he'd run up and down the palins and bark and +take on like he'd give the world if that fence wasent there. So one day +when he was showin' off in that way I caught him by the nap of the neck +as he run by me, and jest histed him right over and drapped him. He +struck the ground like an injun rubber ball, and was back agin on my +side in a jiffy. If he had ever jumped that fence before I dident know +it. The other dog run a quarter of a mile without stoppin'. Now, that's +the way with sum foaks. If you want to hear war tawk jest put a fence +between 'em; and if you want it stopped, jest take the fence away. Dogs +is mighty like peepul anyhow. They've got karacter. Sum of em are good, +honest, trusty dogs that bark mity little and bite at the right time. +Sum are good pluk, and will fite like the dickens when their masters is +close by to back em, but ain't worth a cent by themselves. Sum make it a +bizness to make other dogs fite. You've seen these little fices a +runnin' around growlin' and snappin' when two big dogs cum together. +They are jest as keen to get up a row and see a big dog fite as a store +clerk or a shoemaker, and seem to enjoy it as much. And then, there's +them mean yaller-eyed bull terriers that don't care who they bite, so +they bite sumbody. They are no respekter of persons, and I never had +much respekt for a man who kept one on his premises. But of all mean, +triflin', contemptible dogs in the world, the meanest of all is a +country nigger's houn--one that will kill sheep, and suck eggs, and lick +the skillet, and steal everything he can find, and try to do as nigh +like his master as possibul. Sum dogs are filosofers, and study other +dogs' natur, just like foaks study foaks. It's amazin' to see a town dog +trot up to a country dog and interview him. How quick he finds out +whether it will do to attack him or not. If the country dog shows fite +jest notis the consequential dignity with which the town dog retires. He +goes off like there was a sudden emergency of bisness a callin' him +away. Town dogs sumtimes combine agin a country dog, jest like town +boys try to run over country boys. I wish you could see Dr. Miller's dog +Cartoosh. He jest lays in the piazzer all day watchin' out for a stray +dog, and as soon as he sees him he goes for him, and he can tell in half +a minit whether he can whip him or run him; and if he can, he does it +instanter, and if he can't he runs to the next yard, where there's two +more dogs that nabor with him, and in a minit they all cum a tarin' out +together, and that country dog has to run or take a whippin', shore. +I've seen Cartoosh play that game many a time. These town pups remind me +powerfully of small editurs prowlin' around for news. In my opinyun they +is the inventors of the interview bisness. + + +INTERVIEWERS + +If it ain't a doggish sort of bisnes I'm mistaken in my idees of the +proprietes of life. When a man gits into trubble, these sub editurs go +fur him right strait, and they force their curosity away down into his +heart strings, and bore into his buzzom with an augur as hard and as +cold as chilld iron. Then away they go to skatter his feelins and +sekrets to the wide, wide world. You see the poor feller can't help +himself, for if he won't talk they'll go off and slander him, and make +the publik beleeve he's dun sumthing mean, and is ashamed to own it. +I've knowd em to go into a dungeon and interview a man who dident have +two hours to live. Dot rot em. I wish one of em would try to interview +me. If he didn't catch leather under his coat tail it would be bekaus he +retired prematurely--that's all. But I like editurs sorter--especially +sum. I like them that is the guardeens of sleepin' liberty, and good +morals, and publik welfare, and sich like; but there's sum kinds I don't +like. Them what makes sensation a bizness; feedin' the peepul on +skandal, and crime, and gossip, and private quarrels, and them what +levies black mail on polytiks, and won't go for a man who won't pay em, +and will go for a man that will. Them last watch for elekshun times jest +like a sick frog waitin' for rain. + +As Bill Nations used to say, I'd drather be a luniak and gnaw chains in +an asylum, than to be an editur that everybody feard and nobody +respekted. + + + + +THE TWO BUSINESS MEN + +BY CAROLYN WELLS + + +Once on a Time two Business Men were Each Confronted with what seemed to +be a Fine Chance to Make Money. + +One Man, being of a Cautious and Prudent Nature, said: "I will not Take +Hold of this Matter until I have Carefully Examined it in All its +Aspects and Inquired into All its Details." + +While he was thus Occupied in a thorough Investigation he Lost his +Chance of becoming a Partner in the Project, and as It proved to be a +Booming Success, he was Much Chagrined. + +The Other Man, when he saw a Golden Opportunity Looming Up Before him, +Embraced it at once, without a Preliminary Question or Doubt. + +But alas! after he had Invested all his Fortune in it, the Scheme proved +to be Worthless, and he Lost all his Money. + + +MORALS: + +This Fable teaches that you should Strike While the Iron is Hot, and +Look Before you Leap. + + + + +THE RETORT + +BY GEORGE P. MORRIS + + + Old Nick, who taught the village school, + Wedded a maid of homespun habit; + He was stubborn as a mule, + She was playful as a rabbit. + + Poor Jane had scarce become a wife, + Before her husband sought to make her + The pink of country polished life, + And prim and formal as a Quaker. + + One day the tutor went abroad, + And simple Jenny sadly missed him; + When he returned, behind her lord + She slyly stole, and fondly kissed him. + + The husband's anger arose--and red + And white his face alternate grew. + "Less freedom, ma'am!"--Jane sighed and said, + "Oh dear! I didn't know 'twas you!" + + + + +_A Book about Indians, Animals, and the Woods_ + +Kuloskap, the Master + +AND OTHER ALGONKIN LEGENDS AND POEMS + +By Charles Godfrey Leland, F.R.S.L., _and_ John Dyneley Prince, Ph.D. + + +In the first four cantos are told the legends of the Indian god, +Kuloskap, narrating how he created the Indians' world, cared for the +interests of his children, dealt with the animal kingdom, and punished +the sorcerers. Following these cantos will be found the witchcraft lore, +lyrics, and miscellany. The stories take the reader into the heart of +nature. In the innermost recesses of the forest he follows the strange +doings of wizards, goblins, and witches, and revels in such exquisite +lyrics as those that tell of "The Scarlet Tanager and the Leaf," "The +Story of Nipon the Summer," "Lox, the Indian Devil," "The Song of the +Stars," and others. + + _Dan Beard_ says: "It is the American Indian's 'King Arthur's Round + Table,' 'Robin Hood,' and 'The Arabian Nights.'" + + _Ernest Thompson-Seton_ says: "... Priceless, unique, + irreplaceable." + + _San Francisco Bulletin_: "It is a valuable contribution to the + folk-lore of the world, and of intense interest." + + _The Independent_: "... Dainty in its woodsy freshness ... has the + same beauty as the Norse myths." + +_12mo, Cloth, 359 pp., Ornamental Cover, Profusely Illustrated with +Half-tones by F. Berkeley Smith, Ten Birchbark Tracings by Mr. Leland +after Indian Designs, and a Frontispiece in Color by Edwin Willard +Deming. $2.00, post-paid._ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + +_A Charming Book_ + +My Musical Memories + +By REV. H.R. HAWEIS, A.M., _Author of "American Humorists," Etc., Etc._ + + +A volume of personal reminiscences, dealing with early Life and +Recollections, Hearing Music, Old Violins, Paganini, Liszt, Wagner, +"Parsifal," and other kindred subjects, in a manner both artistic and +pleasing, which shows the author to be a person of great critical +ability in the realm of music. He is an enthusiast, for music hath +charms, so hath its memories; but his enthusiasm never carries him +beyond the bounds of good sense and fair judgment. + + "Of all Mr. Haweis' contributions to musical literature none is + richer or more readable than 'My Musical Memories'; in short, it is + a treasury of musical intelligence such as only a critical taste + and an almost infallible instinct could have gathered."--_The + Musical Herald, Boston._ + + "Those who know the charm and clearness of Mr. Haweis' style in + descriptive musical essays will need no commendation of these + 'Memories,' which are not only vivid but critical."--_The Public + Ledger, Phila._ + +_12mo, Cloth. Price, $1, Post-paid._ + +FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY, Publishers, +NEW YORK and LONDON + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Wit and Humor of America, Volume +III. 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